Few things would seem less natural in the office: Sit with your co-workers, close your eyes and breathe deeply. Feel your muscles relax from head to toe. Clear your mind completely.
For many people, the very notion just seems too foreign. And even those who embrace yoga, meditation, reflexology, reiki or other holistic health practices have tended to do so privately.
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But now, holistic health is coming to the workplace. Banks, insurance companies, even state government offices have yoga classes. And, increasingly, they’re urging everyone to join in.
For All That Matters, a “wellness collaborative” in Wakefield offering hundreds of yoga and holistic health programs, that trend has created an enticing new opportunity.
“The reason I started my whole business is that I believed if people were caring for themselves and knew how to stay healthy, the world would be a better and more peaceful place,” owner Joan Dwyer said. “I never had a desire to go out and say, ‘You need to do this,’ but when the workplace brings in some healthy options, it does create a shift. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
All That Matters has served businesses for years, Dwyer said, but in 2004, in response to rising demand, she hired a staffer to work with them, Lynda Martel. She offers a whole array of “All That Matters for Business” programs, from yoga to teleclasses to “renewal retreats.”
Each client gets a customized package based on the available budget, the workers’ needs and the services that have the most appeal. A business may keep it simple, with a 60- to 90-minute talk about nutrition, stress reduction or basic wellness tips, or go all out by taking a group to the center for the day for about $250 per person.
Elizabeth Johnson, program manager for children’s intensive services at Gateway Healthcare Inc. in Cranston, organized a day trip in July as a special treat for about 25 staffers who work “very hard” and could easily get burned out.
The group included “some people who would love yoga and others who would be afraid to set foot in the place,” so she and the center’s staff worked together to “demystify the experience.”
They started with a light breakfast then had a workshop on how to re-energize and relax. Later, they had a session on language, body movements and how to communicate better.
After lunch, they broke up into groups, and each person got a soothing treatment: a massage, reiki – a Japanese “laying of hands” therapy – or reflexology. They came out refreshed.
“It was just a very positive experience,” Johnson said. “The staff was really pleased. … They got to know one another better, and they have a common language as well through the workshop and their experiences that day, and they can refer back to it and use it.”
Asked whether she’d do it again, she replied: “I’d love to, absolutely.”
For MetLife, All That Matters has provided on-site sessions on stress reduction at one’s desk, Dwyer said. At the University of Rhode Island, center instructors have taught holistic health practices in the dorms. The R.I. Department of Business Regulation is starting yoga classes.
Kendall Sheldon, a yoga instructor at All That Matters, said she tries to adapt to workplace culture. Among co-workers, she said, people don’t want to show their bodies too much or do things that seem too strange, strenuous or personal, so she keeps things very basic.
“You start with really simple things, so that almost anybody with just a certain level of willingness can get something from it for themselves,” she said. Whereas in her Wakefield classes, she may do some chanting, at businesses she never will. She focuses on useful tips.
“You want them to every once in a while stop and just check: Are your shoulders coming up to your ears? Are you really stressed out?” she said. “The cool thing about yoga is that it’s a very practical thing. There is a lot of mysticism, but you don’t have to go into it.”
Jeff Broadhead, chairman of the South Kingstown Chamber of Commerce and a veteran instructor in areas from communications skills to meditation, said holistic health practices can strengthen a business by bringing people together and giving them a sense of purpose.
“I really believe that these tools help us do our jobs better, to be better businesspeople,” he said. “To me it’s a way of recognizing the human spirit better in the workplace.”
More and more, that view is entering the mainstream. Yoga and meditation have become “very trendy,” Dwyer said, because “it’s a wonderful counterbalance to our lifestyle.”
But that’s also created new competition. Dwyer’s company is still the largest holistic health center in the region, but yoga instructors, for example, are now easy to find.
Anne Marie Connolly, a URI fitness expert and director of Get Fit, Rhode Island, the state employees’ wellness initiative, taught aerobics for years, but got certified as a yoga instructor as she saw the demand rising and now teaches only yoga.
The interest in alternative medicine in general, she said, is “amazing” – not just in yoga, but in teas, aromatherapy, etc.
Next month, for example, she’s scheduled a session on natural energy boosters. “We already have 25 people who want to come to that, and we haven’t even advertised it yet.”
