Meditation is a powerful for mental health, clarity, and overall well being. However, the benefits of meditation can go beyond our immediate selves and extend its powers to improve life at the office as well.

Employee Health

Meditation can make you physically healthier. Studies have shown that those who meditate often boast a stronger immune system those who don’t meditate. A stronger immune system means fewer illnesses for employees, which means fewer sick days from the office. Additionally, improved employee health keeps insurance costs down and leads to a more positive office moral.

As for employee mental health, the positive benefits of meditating are clear. The ability to drone-out the static noise which clogs our day through quiet reflection provides an avenue for less stress and heightened creativity. Additionally, quiet reflection allows for more clarity and focus which helps employees better tackle the task at hand.

Office Dynamics and Increased Productivity

As Meditation Den has previously noted, “If you’re looking for an effective way to get more done in your workday in a more efficient manner, meditation can be a practical solution. Meditation can reduce anxiety about your job and help you identify priorities that you can act on one at a time instead of worrying about everything and accomplishing nothing.”

Meditation produces mental clarity which strengthens thinking skills to foster fewer mistakes and enhances job satisfaction which leads to increased productivity and profitability.

Two important components of healthy employees and a healthy business: less stress and more creative productivity. Reduction of stress and anxiety is a clear benefit of meditation. The ability to tune out the static of a hectic day and pool one’s thoughts into a calm central string of consciousness allows for the hectic stress of a workday to fade way. Once stress and daily static fade, meditation allows for attention to focus on tasks at hand and creative ways to develop tasks in the future.

Working In Time With Retreats

With all of the benefits, it’s no wonder that retreats focused on meditation practice and training are popular among small businesses and corporations a like.

Retreats allow for employees to learn and establish meditative practices in serene setting. Meditative retreat provides insight into exploring ways to integrate meditation into office life. This will help solve conflict or provide insight into alternative therapies and healing methods to boost communication and clarity amongst co workers.

The holistic health of a business is important for maintaining healthy businesses practices and retreats are a tax deductible method of healing an office.

Deducting expenses and covering costs

According to the IRS publication 535, for an expense to be deductible, “it must be both ordinary and necessary. An ordinary expense is one that is common and accepted in your trade or business.” A necessary expense is one that is helpful and appropriate for your trade or business.

Maintaining a healthy office is essential to a productive business. Meditative retreats provide an outlet for promoting and sustaining employee health and increasing performances. This is often necessary and appropriate for most types of businesses. Particularly those which seem to be lacking focus or a work group which lacks cohesion.

Establishing a clear set of goals shaped at strengthening company weaknesses. The beneficial properties of meditation such as increased focus, clarity, creativity, and understanding will undoubtedly strengthen almost any work group. Understanding the needs of your particular office will help establish the necessity and appropriateness of the retreat which will help provide a more beneficial experience and make deducting the expenses much easier.

In order to deduct expenses, an accountable plan must be utilized. Meals and entertainment are typically deductible to up to 50% of the cost. Sole proprieters use the travel reimbursement on line “24a and the deductible part of the meals and entertainment reimbursement on line 24b, Schedule C (Form 1040) or line 2, Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040).” Corporations include meals and travel deductions lumped with the amount claimed on the Other deductions line of Form 1120, U.S. Corporation Income Tax Return. Other types of businesses should follow instructions with regard to deducting expenses.

Meditation is a wonderful tool for increasing mental clarity and performance. Engaging in meditative retreats and meditative practices helps arm employees and businesses with those tools to provide a more productive and profitable workplace.

Author Bio

Katei Cranford is a recent UNCG graduate and freelance journalist who’s making her mark beyond academia and advising others not so far behind.

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that can affect people during the winter. Its symptoms include a loss of energy, difficulty concentrating, weight gain, or withdrawal from social time with friends and family. Attributed to a decreased exposure to natural light, SAD can negatively impact your life and make an already-cold time of year more difficult to get through. Thankfully, there are several options when it comes to navigating the winter blues. Read on for tips that can help you get back to productivity and positivity.

Stay Warm

Although the winter months mean the holidays and fun activities like ice skating and sledding, the decrease in temperature can make people less than cheerful. It may seem difficult to stay warm without wildly inflating your heating bill, but it is possible with the simple addition of space heaters. The cold can be insidious, seeming to eke its way into your bones. If you can stay warm, you will likely be happier and more motivated to do things around your home rather than grousing, huddling under a blanket, and wishing spring would hurry up and arrive. Let warmth beget comfort and happiness.

Light Therapy

A viable option when treating SAD, light therapy involves exposure to artificial light, most often from a light box. As the sun’s rays help your body produce Vitamin D, it’s possible that SAD may be a result of a deficiency. You can find your way out of the blues by sitting in front of a light box for as little as half an hour each day, as well as taking an over-the-counter Vitamin D supplement. As with any medicinal therapy, discuss your symptoms with your doctor to make sure this is the right approach for issues you are facing.

Outdoor Meditation

Though it may seem to contradict the advice to stay warm, stepping outside for a brief meditation during the daytime is another treatment option for SAD. As you center your thoughts, let your mind drift to a place that is full of sunshine and light and warmth. Rather than letting your mind run wild with thoughts about winter or the fact that you’re probably chilly, incorporate these thoughts into your time outdoors. While you’re probably not going to head outside during a blizzard or when the temperature is dangerously low, a short session (10 minutes or so) can jumpstart your practice and teach you how to meditate anywhere and at any time. Embrace the change in temperature and how it affects your body. Consider sitting on a yoga mat on the ground to better connect with the earth. Inhale deeply. Let the fresh air clear your mind. Re-enter your home refreshed and ready for cocoa.

It’s important to keep in mind that a case of the blues can be symptomatic of a more serious depression that needs to be discussed with your doctor. Try some of the aforementioned tips, noting what works for you. Above all, be kind to yourself and let your body acclimate to the wintertime. If low feelings persist despite your self-care measures, be sure to speak with a medical professional who can help you find your way back to happiness.

Author Bio

Danielle, who blogs on behalf of Sears and other prestigious brands, enjoys hiking and meditating daily to keep centered. Read her work at Dose of My Own.

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It’s not uncommon for people to make the generalization that meditation and hypnosis are largely the same practice. In both you are relaxed and in an almost trance-like state, focusing on inner reflection and tapping into your subconscious, focusing entirely on one solitary thought. However the two should not be mistaken as the same practice, because their differences define them more so than their similarities.

Meditation

1. With meditation you practice achieving a completely blank mind, devoid of any and all thoughts. The goal of meditation is to empty your mind and eliminate stress from your body through calming thoughts.

2. While practicing meditation the emphasis is usually on controlling your breathing. By focusing on only this you are quieting your mind. We tend to not realize how much is actually going on in our brains until we try to silence them.

3. Usually you have a mantra (or mantras) that you repeat throughout the meditation process that bring you to a state of peace. This chanting of a mantra – whether it’s out loud or internal – tends to have an almost rhythmic and calming effect on our bodies and minds.

Hypnosis

1. With hypnosis you are targeting a singular, defined result, which is one key element that differentiates hypnosis from meditation, such as breaking a bad habit or ending an unnecessary fear. Many people use the process of hypnosis to help them quit binge eating or to finally stop smoking.

2. Hypnosis is achieved through someone else guiding you to a hypnotic state. A hypnotherapist is a highly trained professional employed to lead you into a state of hypnosis before targeting your subconscious mind and helping you to remove the barriers preventing you from achieving your end goal.

It’s not uncommon for people to be turned off to the thought of hypnosis, as many associate it with magic shows and being made to do ridiculous tasks in front of an audience while in a hypnotic state. But the truth is we experience hypnosis more often than we realize – anytime we zone out for an undetermined amount of time we have experienced a type of self-hypnosis.

Meditation, on the other hand, is more widely accepted as a beneficial practice, and something many people embrace on a daily basis. Achieving a true absence of thought, however, takes a lot of time and practice.

Both meditation and hypnosis have the power to help us reduce stress and achieve a more well-rounded sense of self; and both can help us reach a predetermined desired outcome. However it’s the practice and the desired outcome that usually differ, with meditation focusing on lack of thought and hypnosis aiming to change a behavior.

Author Bio

Melanie Slaugh is enthusiastic about the growing prospects and opportunities of various industries and writing articles on various consumer goods and services as a freelance writer. She writes extensively for internet service providers and also topics related to internet service providers in my area for presenting the consumers, the information they need to choose the right Internet package for them. She can be reached at slaugh.slaugh907 @ gmail.com.

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