The impact of Neurofeedback, Meditation and Mindset on Employee Performance

We recently delivered a team event for approximately 50 people.? It needed to be fun, helpful and informative.? So, we decided to use it as an experiment to conduct raw research.? This means using simple tools to collect sufficient scientific data, robust enough to inform decisions. ?Think of minimum viable product in the context of conducting research. The focus of the event was resilience and performance.

At the start of the event, everyone individually completed 3 performance tasks; visual memory recall, find a word & snake.? These tasks were selected to be easily administered, fun, somewhat representative of job performance and with minimal test re-test performance impact.

We then split the total group into 3 smaller groups, each with a different experimental condition (for 15 mins).

Group 1 had a state management session, basically laying down with a meditative and hypnotic positive guided visualisation experience.

Group 2 had neurofeedback, using Electroencephalogram (EEG) to provide them with a live visual indication of their cognitive focus and meditative state, whilst listening to music, crafted to induce a focused and relaxed mental state.

Group 3 were put into a negative mindset by being given a task that required them to recall events that had gone wrong the previous week and to discuss how it made them and others feel.

We then brought the groups back together and repeated the performance tests

The hypothesis was that the performance impact of Neurofeedback (+ Music) would be positive and greater than that of the State Management, which in turn would be better than the Negative Mindset condition.

The results were slightly surprising, with the State Management group improving their performance the most (14%), followed by the Neurofeedback (8%) and perhaps not surprisingly, the Negative mindset coming in last with a reduction in performance (-7%).

What is this telling us ?

The results show us the impact that these interventions can have on the performance of people.? OK, its not enough evidence to show a sustained definitive impact on job performance but a 22% performance differential should be enough to raise a few eyebrows.

To make things a little more fun we then asked each group to identify their top performer, their “Jedi Knight” to represent them. The Jedi’s then competitively completed an VR simulation (in combination with EEG) during which they had the opportunity to chase and catch a mugger that had stolen a bystander’s phone.? Individual progress was based upon their ability to maintain their focus and meditative state and was displayed to all present by projecting their head-up display onto a large screen.

The result ?? Top performer was the Neurofeedback Jedi, followed by State Management Jedi and then the Negative Mindset Jedi.? Not quite the same outcome as the previous performance comparison, but still demonstrating the impact of the interventions on performance.? Fair to say that those witnessing the competitive VR experience expressed their engagement with significant cheering and support.

Sure the experimental design could be better (e.g. proper control group) and more robust statistics applied but this is raw research, conducted during a team intervention,….which incidentally, was closed off with an experimental debrief, an overview of relevant evolving technologies, their potential applications and suggested hints and tips to enhance and maintain personal resilience.

Basic wearable devices like EEG (and ECG), VR headsets and simulations are now commonplace and inexpensive, allowing the transfer of research from the laboratory to the workplace. The potential of hyper-scanning studies (simultaneously collecting data from multiple subjects) combined with increasingly sophisticated data analysis techniques and computational capacity offer new research opportunities.

This case study demonstrates how we can exploit recent technical advances to conduct raw research in the workplace to gain insights. If you share my curiosity, please share this post, leave a comment, or contact me directly so we can collaborate and learn from each other.

Please note: No Ai has been used to generate this article.? The views expressed in this article are the authors only and are not to be associated with their employer. They are offered in good faith, to provoke original thinking with the intention to extend the boundaries of our understanding and identify new methodologies.