Mindfulness

Mindfulness at work

During their 2025 wellbeing week, I worked with a Cheltenham based business and was interviewed about mindfulness.

I received the following feedback:

"Thank you for this inspiring post and for highlighting the importance of mindfulness as we approach World Mental Health Day. I really appreciate the reminder to pause and reflect—especially during this busy time of year. Suzanne Clare Thomas’s insights on mindfulness are powerful, and I found the practical suggestions like mindful walking and enjoying a coffee without multitasking especially helpful. It’s encouraging to see our organisation promoting mental wellbeing through resources like the Employee Assistance Program . I’m looking forward to exploring the guided meditations and sharing them with my team. Let’s continue supporting each other and making mental health a priority—not just this week, but every day."

The interview

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the gentle effort to be continuously present with experience. It was developed and taught by the Buddha as part of a spiritual discipline over 2 1/2 thousand years ago but then came to the West, developed by John Kabat-Zinn in in the 60’s and is now taught in all sorts of contexts to many populations e.g. it's taught to help reduce stress, prevent depression relapse, how to cope better with chronic pain and long term health conditions. It's used in the NHS, where I first learned about it and ran courses. It's also used in schools, at work for stress management and it's also used to improve performance in activity such as high level sports.

How has it helped me?

I'm a pretty positive person already, but it helps me cope with difficult situations in life much better than I used to, particularly with worry and it's help me find more joy in my life. Mindfulness helps me stop and be aware of what I'm doing or thinking.  When I notice this, I can notice the tension in my body or head building up. I can almost see my thoughts crazily whizzing around! or see that my mood is low. So then it's an opportunity for me to decide to just stop, breathe, take a break and let everything calm down. It helps me see the bigger picture in life and enjoy then the present moment and not worry so much.  It's not about dropping responsibilities, but getting a better balance in life. This is very important for me with elderly and disabled relatives to care for. The other way it's helped me is to enjoy life more. There's a lot of grief and sadness in the world and the news pulls us in, but there's also a lot to smile at and laugh about. I think the best part of my day is walking my border terrier just feeling good about being able to do this in the beautiful English countryside.

Why do you think it's important?

It's a very practical way of changing your life for the better. It's actually a lifelong skill worth investing in. Life is full of ups and downs and being human we will of course focus on the negatives, tackling the difficulties, trying to sort them all out, help others too. That's just how our minds are wired, we have a bias to the negative. This actually helps us survive of course, but we often have a tendency to take it too far so we can and do spend an awful lot of time worrying in our heads about the future or regretting the past. If we do this too much, it can lead to exhaustion, burnout, anxiety and low mood. This behaviour is adding extra more suffering to the difficulties that are already with us and makes life tougher than it needs to be. Mindfulness helps us notice this and learn to drop the unnecessary thinking and unhelpful reactions like anger, irritation or unhelpful behaviours such as comfort eating/drinking and focus instead on the present. So it helps us manage our life better with a better balance and a bit more calm.

How can it help in the workplace?

I think there can be so much pressure in the workplace, I'm sure there's a lot in Spirax Sarco too. I've worked as a human resource manager in the corporate world and as a therapist in the NHS and I've seen so much stress and anxiety, which inevitably leads to sickness. I think mindfulness can just give us more resilience to cope with the pressure, know when to say stop, know how to get a good work life balance and thrive rather than just survive.

What advice would you give to someone who is curious about mindfulness but unsure where to start?

Well you don't have to start by sitting on a cushion meditating or a week in silence to feel the benefits!

You can practise mindfulness in daily life by just sitting for a few minutes enjoying your first coffee or tea of the day without multitasking eg listening to the news, reading your kindle, packing your lunch, chatting. That's being mindful. Or walking in your lunch break and being outside, giving you a wider perspective away from what's going on in the office or on your laptop. Taking a minute’s break from your work to just to stop, sit, notice your breath and calm yourself is good. When we move our attention from our heads to noticing sensations in our bodies or focusing on our breath, the chatter in our minds lessens.

There are lots of short guided meditations that I found very helpful. These can be just up to 10 minutes long, so you don't have to start with the toughies! The Calm app is very good for that, maybe just a little one at the start of the day or reset after work. A yoga session is also a lovely way to focus on your body rather than your mind.

It’s easier sometimes to learn in a group and so a weekly class or course may help motivate some of us.

I really think mindfulness, whether it's formal meditations or just practising living mindfully is a lifelong skill.  It's fun to practise and the more you do it regularly, the more you actually change your brain, developing and strengthening new neural pathways.  The better then we can surf life's downs and really enjoy the ups.