Yoga helps increase productivity at work.

We're hearing that more and more companies, in the light of the recession, are returning to their values and brand promise to re-engage employees and help rebuild their dented morale.

Sue, a pro communicator explains how she'd thought she'd fallen out of love with internal communications only to discover she just needed to change the way she worked to regain her motivation.

"We're all professional enough to be able to focus and produce results even if we don't believe in what we're doing," says Sue. "But, as we so often tell our internal customers, we produce better results if we do."

Lacking any real motivation for work? Try yoga as I did with a number of those who spent their days at work with jaded spirits . Many of us are aware of yoga being offered as a perquisitive by the employers who flaunt it in their placement advertisements.

The traditional Indian system of health and well being is fast emerging as an acknowledged means of enhancing productivity at work. It is proving to be helpful even in tackling minor to major and mostly intractable life-style problems of our times.

From being a diehard sceptic and one of the most unwilling experimenters I have grown into an ardent practitioner.Having practised it religiously for about five years and interviewed and enlightened myself with the experiences of 200 practitioners of yoga over the period, I took to teaching it.

One of my student groups who benefitted from yoga are my neighbours who are employed as corporators. They typically follow a sedentry lifestyle having their "bums pressed against one surface or the other over 22 hours a day," as one of them put it so aptly at the introductory yoga session of yoga program I had conducted with them a year back.

Before starting the fortnight-long program I took down the health profile of the 34 participants. While mid-day fatigue and low levels of enthusiasm for work were among the most common problems, a number of them suffered from high blood pressure, onset of diabetes and arthritis, insomnia and other problems. A few who worked at their best could utilise at best 70% of their official time.

The group was put through the yoga regime with 99% - 100% attendance during the fortnight. And the outcome was for all to see to believe: All participants found their energy levels improving in varying degrees leading to better utilisation of official time from the day one to three. Insomniacs could see improvements in their sleeping patterns leading to better productivity at work. The high BP patients registered improvements they could never achieve through medications prescribed for the purpose.

There was a marked improvement in enthusiasm for work among 98% of the participants. Diabetics reported higher energy levels and arthiritics reported amelioration in pain. 

The  company management where I later worked as a consultant employed me additionally for a yoga program which was compulsory for all the employees. The human resource department lost no opportunity to offer yoga program as an advantage in its advertisements to attract new talent. The corporate yoga is now the choice of many.

In my next trip to my rural development project in central India, I conducted the first ever yoga camp in the area. Not surprisingly, the results of enhanced productivity of my farmer friends in the fields matched with that of my corporate students.  I would share my experience of rural yoga camp in a separate post.