B-R-E-A-T-H-E™ In The Workplace Saves Dollars And Lives

In our current economic crisis, workplace wellness programs have become essential to maintain the health of both the employer and the employee. Stress in the workplace has been shown to increase absenteeism, hostility, mistrust, and attrition rates, and decrease company morale and productivity. In addition, workplace stress increases rates of anxiety, depression, and cardiovascular mortality. Recent studies have shown how workplace wellness programs focused on diet, exercise, and stress reduction lead to decreased absenteeism, improved productivity, and substantial cost savings.

The 15 Minute Heart Cure: The Natural Way to Release Stress and Heal Your Heart in Just Minutes a Day by John M. Kennedy, MD   The BREATHE™ technique is the focal point of my new book, The 15 Minute Heart Cure: The Natural Way to Release Stress And Heal Your Heart In Just Minutes A Day and the newly created BREATHE™ For Company Wellness program. BREATHE™ For Company Wellness provides accessible, stress relieving tools – the key for achieving optimal cardiovascular health – and is designed for everyday use. Employees learn and quickly master the manageable, cardiologist prescribed, and clinically proven BREATHE™ technique. BREATHE™ has been shown to ward off and even reverse heart disease and panic attacks, lower blood pressure, and strengthen the immune system. BREATHE™ for Company Wellness also features a secure, password protected social media platform that allows employees to create a profile, update their status, upload and share a variety of media content, post success stories, and view and practice cardiologist directed stress reduction techniques. Employees participate in a blog format, which fosters team building, camaraderie, and collaboration. The social media platform allows the employer to acknowledge and reward employees for individual creativity and personal achievement, helping create a sense of security, belongingness, and appreciation which further defuses employee stress. The health related social media platform engages employees by encouraging interaction and discussion about corporate wellness initiatives focused on leading healthy, productive, and career satisfying lives. As a practicing cardiologist who performs heart surgery on almost a daily basis, I believe BREATHE™ For Company Wellness will revitalize our country’s workforce and increase the bottom line across corporate America.

In a recent issue of BusinessWeek, the CEO of Johnson and Johnson discussed how investing in their large scale health promotion and disease prevention programs served to reduce benefit costs and improve worker productivity. Data from a study of their program also showed how improvements happened quickly and were sustained over time.

Over the past fifteen years, I’ve personally witnessed how emotional stress directly impacts the hearts of my patients. Studies show that workplace stress creates two specific types of emotional stress that are hazardous to our hearts. The first deals with increased physical strain, or feeling like you have too much to accomplish in not enough time. The second involves a type of stress created by feelings of isolation and loneliness, which occurs when employees feel unappreciated, unacknowledged and as though they have little or no chance for career advancement. I often hear complaints of how the demanding pressures at work, coupled with the lack of time to decompress at home, are exhausting.

The reality is, we all experience rising pressures to perform under increasingly more demanding schedules. So I set out to develop a solution, and developed the BREATHE™ technique, a seven-step exercise that helps reduce stress and heal your heart. BREATHE™ combines two proven forms of relaxation – guided imagery and breath work – and puts a modern spin on ancient wisdom. Both of these techniques elicit the “relaxation response” which is opposite the “stress response”. When practiced regularly, like toning your muscles in the gym, you’ll develop a special neural network that will help you focus and find a sense of calm when faced with one of life’s unexpected stressful challenges.

John M. Kennedy, M.D., is the medical director of preventative cardiology and wellness at Marina del Rey Hospital, and author of the new book, The 15 Minute Heart Cure: The Natural Way to Release Stress and Heal Your Heart in Just Minutes a Day. He has also incorporated the BREATHE™ technique into a company wellness program, BREATHE™ For Company Wellness, which will enable companies to provide a healthy and safe alternative for employee stress release; the program features a private social media component. Dr. Kennedy may be reached at john@johnmkennedymd.com. For more information, please visit www.johnmkennedymd.com.

Related Articles:

1. StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 25 – An Interview with John Kennedy, author of The 15 Minute Heart Cure
2. The Ten Commandments of Workplace Motivation
3. Seven Secrets of a “Thank God It’s Monday” Workplace
4. Top 10 Workplace Dysfunctions – And How to TERMINATE Them
5. Complimentary Resource – The High Performance Information Workplace