Practicing mindfulness at work has become a mainstream conversation—quickly.
But how many of us are actually able to take up the practices we see suggested?
Not every workplace allows staff to meditate for twenty minutes a day. While it’s encouraging that a significant number of major companies have stress-reduction initiatives in place, that’s not the day-to-day reality for most people.
The good news: You don’t need a meditation room or a formal program to start bringing small moments of awareness into your workday.
Small, Low-Key Ways to Bring Mindfulness into Work
A post on the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI) blog—a program originally developed at Google—suggests simple ways to bring mindfulness to work without raising eyebrows.
In particular, the blog explores how to bring mindfulness into meetings, those often rushed and overloaded parts of the workday.
Mindfulness teacher Mirabai Bush and others who work with organizations often recommend taking two or three minutes of mindful meditation before a meeting. Search Inside Yourself offers a gentle modification of this: simply taking a moment to pause before meetings begin.
A Simple Mindful Pause Before Meetings
Instead of jumping straight into a meeting with technical conversations and to-do lists, you might try starting with a brief pause.
You could invite people to:
- Take a moment to notice how they’re arriving
- Sense whether they’re rushed, tired, distracted, or relatively settled
- Let their attention land in the room, together
If everyone in the room is feeling wired and stressed, jumping straight into the agenda naturally makes the meeting feel wired and stressed, too.
Instead, take a moment to pause and gently point out where the group is at. If everyone’s stressed, simply acknowledge it—with compassion and without blame.
This small act of “naming the elephant in the room” helps:
- Place everyone’s attention on what’s really going on
- Bring awareness into the present moment
- Create a bit more spaciousness before diving into decisions and debates
Sometimes, just this shared awareness can make a meaningful difference.
Over time, you may begin to influence others to be more aware of where they’re at emotionally—and where their coworkers are at, too. In this way, you can help train others to be more mindful without ever using the word “mindfulness.”
When Naming Stress Feels Uncomfortable
Of course, every workplace culture is different.
Taking a brief pause before meetings may feel feasible and relatively neutral. But openly acknowledging stress levels in the group might feel uncomfortable in many organizations, especially if leaders aren’t the ones initiating this kind of conversation.
If you’re unsure how far you can go, you might:
- Start with a silent pause or a neutral check-in (e.g., “Let’s take 30 seconds just to arrive.”)
- Gradually introduce gentle language about energy levels or focus
- Pay attention to how people respond, and adjust accordingly
If you want a clearer picture of how your company currently supports (or resists) this kind of openness, you might explore resources that assess organizational culture around compassion and care.
One resource mentioned in the original piece is the compassionate organization quiz, based on more than a decade of compassion research conducted by CompassionLab and the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. A tool like this can offer insight into how your workplace ranks in terms of fostering openness, and provide pointers on how to broach conversations around stress, wellbeing, and support.
Moving Slowly, with Awareness
Bringing mindfulness to work doesn’t have to mean big programs or bold declarations.
It can start with:
- One pause before a meeting
- One honest acknowledgment of how people are really doing
- One small shift in how you arrive at your desk, your inbox, or your next conversation
Over time, these small, quiet practices can create a more compassionate, grounded, and human workplace—one moment, one meeting at a time.
Mindfulness at work doesn’t have to be loud or flashy. It can be as simple as a breath, a pause, and a little more honesty about how we’re really feeling.
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