GrokTalk Blog

The benefits of meditation and mindfulness are numerous. Scientific studies have demonstrated many benefits of meditation from reduced stress, to increased productivity and focus, to overall happiness and health benefits. Many well known successful executives and entrepreneurs swear by their daily meditation habit.

You’re interested in starting a meditation habit, but not sure where or how to begin because something so straightforward, essentially sitting still and thinking, somehow feels so overwhelming. Here are 3 easy steps to help you build your own healthy meditation habit.

If you’re a parent, you have probably heard from your children’s teachers about the perils of the “summer slide”. The fear is that as a result of not being in the classroom for ~3 months, our children may “lose” a significant chunk of the skills they learned during the school year. This situation can lead many good moms and dads to purchase workbooks, explore academic camps and/or hire summer tutors as a way to stave off the dreaded slide. And all of these strategies are great for your child’s school career.

As a good parent, are you also thinking about your family’s fitness and overall wellness this summer? For many families, the start of summer means a significant change in routine. Kids of all ages may regularly stay up later and enjoy significantly more screen time. And, potentially, their summer activities may include just as much sitting time as a typical school day, but without recess or PE. And with family vacations and long days at the community pool planned, eating fast food over more healthy alternatives could be more common.

Don’t let your family fitness and wellness routines slide during the summer. Here are 4 ideas to avoid a fitness slide this summer.

Many people hear the term mindfulness meditation and instantly their eyes narrow with alarm or roll back into their heads. I think I can see the thought bubble over their head flashing “Yes, I know, I know…but I’m trying to build a career here! I don’t have the time!” Because in the busy life of today’s leader (or rising leader) there never seems to be enough time for anything, much less 15 minutes a day for mindfulness meditation. That’s a mistake.

If you do not practice mindfulness, you may be short shrifting your career because you are neglecting to develop critical skills you need to grow and thrive in your career — and in the rest of your life. Here are 3 reasons why cultivating mindfulness through meditation is necessary for your success.

It may not be news that employees see their own stress as a top issue. Now Towers Watson’s 2013/2014 Staying@Work Report confirms that 78% of employers also see it as their top too.

An employee’s stress level is a top concern of their employer because it costs American businesses ~ $300 billion/year in increased healthcare costs and lost productivity from absenteeism and low engagement.

We have all heard the news that healthy and fit employees are more productive, handle stress better and are more engaged. This leads to higher profitability, higher productivity, higher sales and overall, happier employees  -- all great things for their companies who pay them.

Executives across companies small and large and young and old are thinking about how to craft wellness programs that will attract and retain the best talent. In fact, all of the Best Companies to Work For offer some sort of Wellness program. And as the war for talent rages on, it is the companies who authentically prioritize their employee’s wellness and work life balance who will have the advantage.

It would be ideal if each employee felt that wellness was valued so highly at their company that taking a 30 minute fitness or meditation break would be supported whole-heartedly. But until this ideal is a reality, employers may want to consider the full range of benefits of regular exercise.

Conscientious companies are getting in-tune with what Arianna Huffington calls the Third Metric of Success and are making workplace wellness a top priority. In reading Harvard Business Review’s Regular Exercise is Part of Your Job, there are simply too many benefits for the individual and employer to ignore.

What if I told you sitting all day is killing you? Well, that’s exactly what scientists have discovered in several recent studies, including one published this month in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. It turns out, our bodies were never meant to be glued to a seat for up to 60% of the day, and that our hunting and gathering ancestors who stood up or walked for 90% of their day actually had the right idea.

How bad is sitting, really? Dr. James A. Levine, Director of the Mayo Clinic/Arizona State University Solutions Initiative and the inventor of the treadmill desk, who has published more than 100 scientific papers, has this to say in hisarticle for MindBodyGreen: “Your chair is killing you. Many American workers sit more than 15 hours each day. Think about it for a second. You get up in the morning, drive to work, sit all day long at work, drive home, eat dinner, watch TV and surf the Internet before bed. This degree of excess sitting is not what our bodies were designed to do.”

 “When we take care of ourselves, we are only going to be better at everything,” proclaimed Arianna Huffington at a Business Chicks event in Sydney. Huffington is promoting her new book “Thrive” and her new lifestyle of doing less, not more. “Drop the things that no longer serve you,” she says.

After collapsing in her office due to sheer exhaustion in 2007, she committed to getting a full eight hours of sleep a night and abandoning a life of chronic busyness and unfinished aspirations, like wanting to be good skier. “I’m never going to invest the time and energy to become a good skier so it was liberating to complete that project by dropping it.”

For many Americans, Labor Day’s most popular meaning is “the last hurrah of Summer,” but its national significance is much bigger than that. According to Wikipedia, Labor Day was established as an official holiday in 1887 as a celebration of the American labor movement. It is an annual tribute to the contributions all workers make to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of their country. Here’s how we think you should celebrate: 

First, relax and have fun! You work hard so you certainly deserve to celebrate this weekend! Grokker’s Guide to Labor Day Weekend will help you maximize your fun and relaxation with:

Wellness sounds like a wonderful thing, and while you might be already tuned in to a lifestyle of wellness, it’s still an elusive concept for many of us. There are lots of ways to create a healthier, happier life, but here are 3 paths that may help you find your way.

Focus on Being your Best You

It must be human nature to compare ourselves to one another, but when it comes to wellness, the best place to focus is on yourself. What choices did you make today that were good ones? Did you take time for at least 20 minutes of exercise today? Did you eat the apple with lunch instead of potato chips? Remember, self care isn’t selfish, so go ahead and focus on being a better you. And there isn’t just one definition of beauty. You are powerful, and you are responsible for you.

If you’re like me, when you have a minute at the doctor’s office or hair salon, you indulge in a little guilty pleasure of reading the entertainment magazines. I always check out the “celebrities are just like us” section to see pictures of the stars going about their daily lives.

And just like us, actors and entrepreneurs in the public eye also struggle with their work life balance. And, just like us, they choose to devote time to activities they love; those activities that help keep them healthy and centered.

We all have those days where we can’t get away at lunchtime for even a walk or maybe your boss values “face time” too much to ever let that happen.  Here are 4 tips I’ve found to help you fit in some exercise while stuck in the office.

Toning from your office chair. Verily magazine shows us that it’s possible to tone your tummy and glutes right from your office chair. With exercises called the “desk chair non-wall-sit” and the “I-need-to-adjust-my-monitor-air-squat” your colleagues may not even notice! There are even dozens of active desk chairs which will engage your core while you sit.