A team of researchers and medical professionals with extensive meditation training are coming together to conduct a study to understand the effects of meditation on stress and corporate burnout. The objective is to understand the effectiveness and efficacy of a 4-week Heart-based meditation wellness workshop on burnout and emotional wellness of corporate employees using Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). The study is currently in the IRB review process for ethics approval. The primary investigators have already conducted over 25 sessions in large corporations, such as HSBC, Northbridge Insurance, Airbnb, PaySafe and Microsoft.
The Go-Fund Me page is set up to crowdsource funding for this study. The donations you provide will help cover the following expenses: Study Set Up & Regulatory Board Costs, Study Execution Costs, Study Infrastructure Costs, and Study Publication Costs.
Background & Objective
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, stress is described as the brains’ response to any demands. Prolonged levels of stress can lead to burnout. Burnout is defined by the loss of emotional, mental and physical energy due to continued levels of stress induced by workplace demands/dissatisfaction, emotions trauma and other lifestyle behaviour. Corporate sector employees are 2 fold prone to experience high levels of burnout in comparison to the general population. Currently Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) is considered the gold-standard in measuring burnout and has been validated in several sample populations.
The purpose of this study is to understand the effectiveness and efficacy of a 4-week heart-based meditation wellness workshop on burnout and emotional wellness of corporate employees using MBI. For the purpose of this study, corporate employees are defined as individuals working in institutions with greater than 100 employees. The specific aim of this study is to assess changes in scores, measuring symptoms of Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Personal Accomplishment using the Maslach Burnout Index.
We hypothesize that the meditation wellness practice will be associated with reduction in burnout for those who take part in the meditation program in comparison to the participants who did not meditate and participate in the wellness program.
Methodology
This 1 year study aims to enroll ~150 voluntary adult participants who have self-identified as suffering from occupational stress. The study will use an experimental pre-post test, designed to include a comparison group (control). There are two different ways to participate in the study, one may choose to fill out the MBI assessment forms at weeks 0 & 4 (control) OR may participate in the meditation program and fill out the MBI assessment forms at weeks 0 & 4 respectively (meditation arm).
Participants of the meditation arm will be registered to attend the wellness workshop (voluntarily) and will attend weekly, hour long sessions with the study team (mentioned below).
The hour long workshop is broken into three components:
-Knowledge Session: 20 minutes virtual lecture on Zoom to discuss topics such as, the science behind stress, benefits of meditation, importance of sleep, fear & anxiety, building resilience and destress & detox by topic experts.
-Experimental Session: 20 minutes Relaxation and Meditation Session
-Interactive Session: 10 minutes Q&A
Upon completion of the weekly workshop, participants will be emailed a guided audio (relaxation and meditation) that they are urged to practice during the week, until the following week’s session. Participants sign a statement of confidentiality related to class discussion as part of the consenting process.
Study Team
The study is conducted by researchers/medical professionals who have been meditators & meditation trainers for over 10 years. The primary investigators of this study are as follows:
-Andy Kumar, is a young medical professional who understands the benefits of meditation first hand and is currently pursuing his postgraduate studies on understanding meditation and its effects on the brain, using various neuroimaging techniques.
-Aravind Ravindran, is a medical professional and has been practicing meditation for over 15 years. He has been actively involved in CME lectures discussing the benefits of meditation for Health Care Providers.
-Vishwa Sreenivasan is a corporate executive and an experienced meditator who has been actively involved in designing various wellness workshops for Fortune 500 corporations and educational institutions.
The investigator(s) have partnered with Resolution Blue Labs (RBL), an innovation lab building a community of individuals to grow, foster and support next generation ideas in health, education and wellness. This study is part of an initiative, RBL-X Wellness, a division of RBL that aims to support and study wellness initiatives, particularly during such uncertain times, so that humanity may benefit from it. The goal of RBL-X Wellness is to ensure that wellness practices are available to everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status and break the barriers to the access of wellness practices and practitioners. RBL-X Wellness partners with the investigators to ensure the study is conducted with the highest level of ethical standards and research quality, by providing assistance with ethics submission, study design, data collection, data processing and publication.
The Go-Fund Me page is set up to crowdsource funding for this study. The donations you provide will help cover the following expenses: Study Set Up & Regulatory Board Costs, Study Execution Costs, Study Infrastructure Costs, and Study Publication Costs.
Background & Objective
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, stress is described as the brains’ response to any demands. Prolonged levels of stress can lead to burnout. Burnout is defined by the loss of emotional, mental and physical energy due to continued levels of stress induced by workplace demands/dissatisfaction, emotions trauma and other lifestyle behaviour. Corporate sector employees are 2 fold prone to experience high levels of burnout in comparison to the general population. Currently Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) is considered the gold-standard in measuring burnout and has been validated in several sample populations.
The purpose of this study is to understand the effectiveness and efficacy of a 4-week heart-based meditation wellness workshop on burnout and emotional wellness of corporate employees using MBI. For the purpose of this study, corporate employees are defined as individuals working in institutions with greater than 100 employees. The specific aim of this study is to assess changes in scores, measuring symptoms of Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Personal Accomplishment using the Maslach Burnout Index.
We hypothesize that the meditation wellness practice will be associated with reduction in burnout for those who take part in the meditation program in comparison to the participants who did not meditate and participate in the wellness program.
Methodology
This 1 year study aims to enroll ~150 voluntary adult participants who have self-identified as suffering from occupational stress. The study will use an experimental pre-post test, designed to include a comparison group (control). There are two different ways to participate in the study, one may choose to fill out the MBI assessment forms at weeks 0 & 4 (control) OR may participate in the meditation program and fill out the MBI assessment forms at weeks 0 & 4 respectively (meditation arm).
Participants of the meditation arm will be registered to attend the wellness workshop (voluntarily) and will attend weekly, hour long sessions with the study team (mentioned below).
The hour long workshop is broken into three components:
-Knowledge Session: 20 minutes virtual lecture on Zoom to discuss topics such as, the science behind stress, benefits of meditation, importance of sleep, fear & anxiety, building resilience and destress & detox by topic experts.
-Experimental Session: 20 minutes Relaxation and Meditation Session
-Interactive Session: 10 minutes Q&A
Upon completion of the weekly workshop, participants will be emailed a guided audio (relaxation and meditation) that they are urged to practice during the week, until the following week’s session. Participants sign a statement of confidentiality related to class discussion as part of the consenting process.
Study Team
The study is conducted by researchers/medical professionals who have been meditators & meditation trainers for over 10 years. The primary investigators of this study are as follows:
-Andy Kumar, is a young medical professional who understands the benefits of meditation first hand and is currently pursuing his postgraduate studies on understanding meditation and its effects on the brain, using various neuroimaging techniques.
-Aravind Ravindran, is a medical professional and has been practicing meditation for over 15 years. He has been actively involved in CME lectures discussing the benefits of meditation for Health Care Providers.
-Vishwa Sreenivasan is a corporate executive and an experienced meditator who has been actively involved in designing various wellness workshops for Fortune 500 corporations and educational institutions.
The investigator(s) have partnered with Resolution Blue Labs (RBL), an innovation lab building a community of individuals to grow, foster and support next generation ideas in health, education and wellness. This study is part of an initiative, RBL-X Wellness, a division of RBL that aims to support and study wellness initiatives, particularly during such uncertain times, so that humanity may benefit from it. The goal of RBL-X Wellness is to ensure that wellness practices are available to everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status and break the barriers to the access of wellness practices and practitioners. RBL-X Wellness partners with the investigators to ensure the study is conducted with the highest level of ethical standards and research quality, by providing assistance with ethics submission, study design, data collection, data processing and publication.
Co-organizers3

Resolution Blue Labs
Organizer
Scarborough, ON
Andy Kumar
Co-organizer
Davejot Sandhu
Co-organizer