In September and October, at EDC, we celebrated the Mindfulness Month. This is the program that has been designed by GE in collaboration with Headspace to help employees be more present in their lives.

Within this event EDC HealthAhead team organized a series of Mindfulness and Yoga classes. Workshops were led by experienced trainers. One is a member of the Mindfulness Association Poland and the second is Yoga and Stress-Therapy expert.

During 30 days we organized 8 trainings, that were participated regularly by more than 30 people.

Each Thursday we met to provide a deeper understanding of Mindfulness and to make it even more elementary part of everyday life. We practiced different techniques and discussed topics useful to participants. One topic was arising from the other.

“I’m really glad that I took part in the Mindfulness sessions. Before them I didn’t know how to be fully present and aware of what I am doing, feeling and where I am now. I also had problem with recognizing feelings such as stress. Thanks to the EDC training, I have found out what can help me to cope with that. I also know that by practicing, I it can really start to work, that is why, I would like to continue Mindfulness trainings in the future.” – said Marta Kołakowska, one of the participants. Marta underlined also the fact, that trainings during working hours were something very good. “It was a great opportunity to calm down during the workday.” – added Marta.

Michał Suski, who took part in the yoga workshops, agreed with her and noticed one more important aspect of training in his everyday workplace. “Having sessions at work showed me that I can practice yoga literally always and everywhere. Even when we changed the training room for the one with possibility to train only on chairs, we managed to do it. And what’s more, that was really inspiring!” – Michał told us. The goal of Yoga classes was to learn how to reduce stress by methods such as proper breathing and to release tension from the body through relaxation techniques.

Both Mindfulness and yoga workshops encouraged a greater sense of feeling present to all employees, who participated in them. The organizer of the EDC Mindfulness Month – Krzysztof Jedliński from the HealthAhead team told us that such activities can also result in a greater sense of calm, ease, empathy, appreciation, gratitude and balance.

For our brain, every vision and thought are perceived as real and trigger a full stress response of the body. The ability to quickly “reset” the nervous system and have healthy, anti-stress habits can protect our body from exhaustion. That’s why I think those workshops were really useful for all our employees” – he summed up the event.