The value of brain training is becoming increasingly black and white – you save money and live longer. This month I have written two separate comments on recent research backing up the value of quality brain training. However here I want to promote that the two are intrinsicly linked. Brain training in a corporate environment can save companies billions of dollars / pounds each year. High quality brain training courses for an individual can mean you have more chance of living longer…
Facts:
- Stress related illness cost the UK £28 billion each year
- This is a 1/4 of the UK’s sick bill
- More than 13 million working days a year are lost in the UK because of work related stress
- Stress is thought to contribute to coronary heart disease (CHD)
- More than $475 billion is spent annually in the USA treating CHD
- Meditation, or relaxing the brain, can reduce number of heart attacks and stroke by 47%
Brainwave training is a simple and cost effective way assist with these issues.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recently stated that the cost of stress related mental illness was £28bn – a quarter of the UK’s total sick bill.
Companies need a clear approach to managing stress in the workplace. Managers need to understand how to create a reduced stress environment for employees. “Bad managers were the single biggest cause of problems“, NICE claimed. This can be prevented by implementing a Mental Fitness Education programme for managers, such as the Mind Maximiser course.
Employees need to also understand what they can do to take control of the potential stress in the work environment and how to better cope with it. Simple strategies such as making the Brain Buddy available in the work place would help.
As shown by the NICE research, such programmes could save companies billions. It suggests that for the average firm of 1,000 staff, £250,000 a year could be saved.
It is also known that stress contributes to an increase likelihood of coronary heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in the USA.
Research by The Medical College in Wisconsin, USA has shown that practising Transcendental Meditation(r) can lower the rate of heart attack, stroke and death by 47%. A $3.8 million grant sponsored the nine year trial at the The Medical College. There was also a significant reduction in blood pressure. The American Heart Association supports that 20 minutes of meditation twice a day is important.
In the western world we are living in a highly stressful environment. Information flow is faster than ever before, to which we need to respond in a similarly fast manner. Emails, the internet and multi-media all bombard us with information which we need to filter. This results in us living in a high-beta brainwave state which for extended periods of time is unhealthy. We are forgetting how to relax, which is at the centre of all the problems above. TM is one way to control and lower your brainwave activity. But the “Catch 22” is not many people have the time to learn such a skill.
The Brain Training Company is at the forefront of corporate and personal training, teaching the necessary skills for our brains to cope in the modern environment. These are skills which can be learnt very quickly. It is possible to learn to read through information three times faster, remembering more information at the same time. It is possible to learn how to shift from a high-beta state to a more relaxed and efficient alpha state. Using technology such as the Brain Buddy is now one of the most effective ways to change your mental state.
As I was quoted in the media ten years ago, “you don’t need to sit on a rock and eat rice for 20 years” to learn these skills. Managers and employees can learn these cost cutting and life saving skills in a matter of days.
References:
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence
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