The Alexander Technique Can Help Big Business

In a study conducted in 2011, Alexander Technique teacher Mireia Mora Griso undertook a study of large companies who gave their employees training in the Alexander Technique. If you have studied the Alexander Technique, the results are perhaps not surprising, but for the business world at large, they should be a wake-up call to Big Business of the power of the Technique to improve productivity and cut health-care costs.

Griso’s research protocol whittled down her subjects to ten major companies:

• Victorinox (Swiss knife company)
• Unicible (an IT company)
• Siemens AG (an electrical engineering company)
• Treuhand GmbH (an accountancy practice)
• Ville de Lausanne (a town services organization)
• D. E. V. K. (an insurance company)
• Steuerberaterverban Schleswig-Holstein (a tax consultancy company)
• Alliance Insurance Corporation (an insurance company)
• Chevron-Texaco (an energy company)
• Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (a hospital)

In each of these companies, more than 50 people were given significant training in the Technique (more than just an introductory session). In each of the companies, the training was given substantial support as an important part of policy over, at minimum, a three-year period. The Alexander Technique teachers conducting the training all reported that the people they worked with recognized the need to improve their quality of life in the workplace and, despite initial resistance in some cases, the majority of people became positive about the work.

The study produced a fascinating list of benefits of the Technique reported by the participants:

Physical Benefits

• Reduced pain and disability
• Improved muscle tone
• Postural coordination and balance

Psychological Benefits

• Stress management
• Improvements in self-esteem
• Improvements in public speaking
• Improvements in creativity
• Improvements in concentration
• Improvements in team work

Business Benefits

• Reduced work hours lost to illness
• Reduced accidents
• Reduced employment insurance costs
• Improved cost-profits relationship
• Improved work performance

To read about the study in “TalkBack” the quarterly magazine off BackCare, the U. k.’s National Back Pain Association, go here.