Here's How Employees are Letting Go of Their Stress by Acting it Out Companies have now realized the power of theatre and meditation in everyday life to maintain a positive atmosphere at workplace

Many have a perfect 9-5 job, a handsome salary and an envious workplace. Making work life balance a success, working out few hours a week and binging at the weekend to celebrate a complete week of robotic existence, life seems ideal!

But behind these triumphant moments, one hides the exhaustion of umpteen attempts at crafting newer strategies, the discouragement of rejection and lack of spirits at attainting goals. Team lunches, group discussions, one on one motivational talk; all seems vague and unnecessary. There are occasions with sudden bouts of depression where we question ourselves with, "What am I doing in life?"; "Is this what I really want?"; "Why am I here?"; "If this was my dream job, why am I unhappy?"

This is the life of most of the corporate white collared employees, who are unhappy and unaware of their situations. Some of them are clueless, some don't want to accept their "issues' and those who are aware have no immediate solution to their problems.

Understanding the corporate stress levels, many companies have realized the need of theatre and meditations in everyday life to maintain a positive atmosphere, develop team oneness, remain motivated and focused on organizational and personal goals. By efficiently devising techniques for maximum impact, corporates are now consistently using methods to help organizations and individuals achieve escalation, originality and unity.

Actcelerate, Founded by Prashant Chawla; The Way Repertory, Founded by Saurabh Kaushik, engage employees of big corporate companies in innovative, fun and engaging sessions using theatre as a tool.

With his long experience in arranging such trainings in India, South-East Asia and Far East, Chawla strongly vouched for the benefits of wellness initiatives. In an exclusive interview with Entrepreneur India, the trainers elaborate on the ways of increasing employee potential to enhance the productivity of the individual as well as the company.

Organisation Growth By-product of Happy Employees

Industry leaders across the globe feel that it is the need of the hour to understand that employee's consciousness is proportional to organization's growth. CXOs often talk about bringing in revenue, achieving targets, getting new ideas and efficient work force. However, all these are the by-products of happy employees.

According to Chawla, if a person in an organization is happy, joyful, sorted emotionally and mentally, then only he or she can bring in efficiency, focus on work, bring innovation in their work and growth shall come as a result of all these factors in the organization.

Kaushik considers theatre, a great tool for creative expression, a great stress buster. "The responses from our trainings in terms of managing stress, and life in general, have been very encouraging. Individuals and also organizations come back to me for further training sessions," he shared.

Theatre as Stress Buster

Realizing the demand, organizations are now waking up to it and are introducing employee wellness programs to address the need. As a response to this demand, many individual trainers are making their careers in corporate training through creative modules of training.

Nandini Choudhuri is one such stress management consultant and meditation mentor, who has been into corporate training for the past six years. She highly recommended theatre for its therapeutic influence on stress. "Expressions are the best way to purge stress, and theatre is all about expression. The more you express your emotions, the less they get trapped inside. This results in a cathartic effect on our soul, leaving us free of unnecessary emotional baggage!" she opined.

"Theatre as a tool for reducing stress has immense possibility. The therapy can go a long way to bring about mark changes in feelings, cognition, physical functioning, as well as behaviour of an individual. It helps creating harmony with the self and thus leads one to a balanced life," added Kaushik.

Wellness Initiatives Harmonizing Human Psyche to Create Balance

Reports say wellness initiatives have helped participants in enormous ways. While some have come forth with innovation and new ideas in their respective work, others have got connected with their motivated and happier selves. Being efficient and focussed is another by-product of innovation and motivation.

Chawla's six years of experience have helped him identify other benefits, including getting aware of different aspects of life, being aligned with the organization's vision and getting connected to people (home or work) easily and genuinely.

"Once we are aware of ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses, it's easy to get aligned with people and vision around us. That way we don't need team building sessions as people are connected genuinely. It is only when we are sorted both personally and professionally, growth and prosperity will follow at work," he concluded.