Politics.co.uk News: MP: Stressed civil servants 'should meditate more'

Alex Stevenson of Politics.co.uk news section wrote an article on Wednesday, 16 January 2013, about the potential use of mindfulness meditation in UK politics. The article ran under the title: 'MP: Stressed civil servants 'should meditate more'.

Here are the quotes from the article which I found most interesting:

"Vale of Clwyd MP Chris Ruane thinks government departments can reduce sick leave by getting stressed civil servants to concentrate on their mental health in meditation training sessions.

"I've had an interest in mindfulness now for about five years," he told politics.co.uk.

"I haven't done the traditional eight-week course on mindfulness, but I've been practising myself."

 [...]

"Most of the government departments he questioned about the impact mindfulness-based practice can have on reducing workplace stress and staff absences said they were not interested in the enlightened approach.

But the Ministry of Defence has appointed a 'health and wellbeing champion', the Commons is "considering the contribution mindfulness-based practice" could have and the Department of Health is piloting a mindfulness based stress reduction programme across two directorates.

"The evaluation will inform decisions about further roll out," health minister Daniel Poulter said."