HSSEQ Bulletin: Mindfulness - Prevention vs Intervention

Let’s all get a bit hippy for a minute and talk about mindfulness. Bear with us. At it’s core, mindfulness is just the human capability to be fully present in the moment. Doesn’t sound so hippy when you say it like that does it? It’s a quality that’s innate in all of us, sometimes we just don’t give it enough air time.

What has this all got to do with safety in a work environment? Mindfulness helps us focus on what we are experiencing and creating space between the stimulus and our response. By deepening our understanding of our responses and engaging in practices to calm our minds, we can make more effective choices, leading to better outcomes for quality, efficiency and performance, not just safety.

Prevention of incidents through mindfulness makes sense, however those of us who practice mindfulness strategies, tend to use them to refocus when we are stressed, so it becomes intervention initiated instead of prevention.

So introduce breathing and focus exercises to the pre-start and mindful minutes to kick off meetings. Let’s get curious to the state of mind of our people and the potential distractions stopping them being present. We can prevent incidents by ensuring we are all present and have a resilience to maintain that state of mind throughout whatever life throws at us.