Mindfulness-Based Safety: Increasing Attention to Task in Alberta’s Oil and Gas Drilling and Completions Operations

With studies demonstrating mind-wandering to be associated with failure to perform monitoring procedural steps, a deficiency in being able to call information to mind, more false alarms, and a reduction in task performance, we cannot afford to continue to overlook the potential impact mind-wandering has on human behavior in high-risk environments within the Alberta oil and gas industry. This paper gives consideration to mindfulness-based interventions, a domain of positive psychology, for reducing the occurrence of mind-wandering and improving attention to a task. It is from a foundation of research explored in the literature reviews of mind-wandering and mindfulness, that I invite the oil and gas industry to incorporate the supplemental element of, what I am terming, Mindfulness-Based Safety, into their Health & Safety Management Systems. In support of this, I provide a suggested plan for creating awareness and implementing mindfulness into operations to reduce mind-wandering and therefore increase the amount of time employees spend with their minds on task.