How to Overcome Stress in the Work Place

In her new book, “Work Zone Madness! Surviving and Rising Above Work Place Dysfunction,” Nancy Slomowitz, President and CEO of Executive Management Associates in Washington, DC, recommends the Transcendental Meditation technique as a way for businesses to reduce the negative effects of stress, to help create more focused, positive, priority-driven employees.

A chapter on the TM technique is not the only thing that makes this new book unique.

“I wanted to reach people who don’t like to read business or self-help books,” says Nancy. “No one is really talking or writing about the real sources of dysfunction that threaten to undermine the kind of core values that all businesses need to establish and maintain. Far too many businesses are on the verge of failure or are just holding on under enormous financial pressures. Too often the true sources of problems are ignored. A ‘what’s in it for me’ mentality, overreliance on technology, epidemic levels of stress, and toxic relationships are turning our workplaces into virtual battle zones. My goal was to write about very common workplace problems in a format that was a light, and fun to read, with lessons and workable solutions told through characters and situations that people can easily relate to.”

Nancy Slomowitz

Nancy is not a newcomer to the Transcendental Meditation program. She learned TM as a teenager and has been practicing it for almost 40 years. In 2006, Nancy began to offer the TM technique to the employees of her company, a respected management consulting firm in the DC metro area, as a means to improve creativity, job satisfaction and team cohesion.

“TM is a very important part of my life,” says Nancy. “It’s given me a competitive advantage in business. I thought it was important to offer TM as a benefit to my employees. At the time, offering meditation classes as a paid benefit seemed to people to be a novel and unorthodox thing to do—something that was counter-intuitive to the culture of high powered management consultants with Type-A personalities. But TM produced tangible, practical benefits in both their professional and personal lives. The workplace environment soon grew from toxic to harmonious among other positive changes. And surprisingly, the company’s cost of healthcare insurance actually went down due to a reduction in sick claims.”

“There was no reason to keep it a secret,” says Nancy. “TM has become mainstream over the past several years. I was also very inspired by the work of the David Lynch Foundation – so much so that I formed my own Foundation to make this powerful tool accessible to others. Since doing so, my support of nature has increased 100-fold.”

Nancy’s success in business and consulting has resulted in her receiving the Women-Owned Business Enterprise Award by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Nancy Slomowitz is also the founder of the Gilbert Slomowitz Foundation, which helps provide financial support to people throughout the US to learn the TM technique.

This past year, Ms. Slomowitz produced a documentary about the effect of the TM program on her company and its workers. Click on the YouTube video below to watch an excerpt of it.

(Click here to view the full 20 minute version.)

RELATED LINKS:
Visit Nancy’s website at www.companyrehab.net
View her film “Meditation Makeover” at www.gsfweb.org