Mindfulness
Mindfulness
5 minutes
You’ve probably heard of mindfulness and pictured someone sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat, meditating for hours. You might also have wondered what that has to do with a busy, fast-paced workplace.
While some people do practise mindfulness this way, it doesn’t have to look like that. At its core, mindfulness is simply the ability to pause, steady yourself, and return to calm and focus. It can take just a few minutes and can be done at your desk, before a meeting, or during a challenging conversation.
Mindfulness practices have existed for thousands of years in Eastern traditions. In the 1970s, Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn developed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), bringing scientific research and clinical applications to the practice. Since then, mindfulness has been widely used in psychology, healthcare, and workplaces.
Around the same time, researchers also began studying heart coherence which is a state where breathing, heart rhythms, brain activity, and hormones work in sync. When this happens, people experience greater calm, clearer thinking, and improved resilience. It helps regulate the nervous system, especially during stress.
For leaders, these approaches help address common challenges such as stress and overwhelm, reactive decision-making, poor focus, low empathy, overthinking, and difficulty adapting to constant change. In short, they help leaders respond thoughtfully rather than react automatically, even in high-pressure environments.
Simple steps in Mindfulness practices include:
- Bringing attention to the body and senses, for example the breath or sounds around you.
- Observe what is happening without judging it
- Notice when your mind wanders and gently let them go
- Return your focus to your breath or body
Simple steps in Heart Coherence practices:
- Breathe slowly and evenly (breathing in and out for 5 seconds each is good)
- Bring attention and focus on the heart or chest area
- Intentionally generate a renewing emotion such as care, peace, appreciation or gratitude.
Both techniques support self-regulation. Over time, they have a cumulative effect and help build resilience. They strengthen our capacity to lead with steadiness, clarity, and emotional balance.
Resilience in leadership means being able to bounce back when things go wrong and keep your energy steady when work feels demanding. It helps you notice what drains you and choose how to respond, instead of reacting automatically.
When leaders build resilience and practise mindfulness, it doesn’t just help them, it helps everyone around them. Teams experience clearer communication, more empathy, better focus, and more thoughtful decisions.
Small stresses are less likely to build up during the day until everything feels overwhelming. You’re also less likely to replay situations in your head after work and more able to properly switch off.
And if this sounds like a big change, start small. Even one mindful pause a day can make a real difference in how you feel and how you show up.
Taking just a few minutes during the day to pause – by focusing on your breathing, your senses, or your heart area – helps calm your nervous system.
When we feel stressed, anxious, irritated, or overwhelmed, our body switches into stress mode. Our heart rate changes, stress hormones rise, and our thinking can become reactive. Simple reset practices help settle this response. They bring the body back into balance so we can think more clearly and respond more calmly.
Research shows that:
- Leaders who practise mindfulness tend to listen better, show more empathy, react less impulsively, and make clearer decisions under pressure.
- Heart coherence practices are linked to healthier heart rhythm patterns (measured through heart rate variability), which are associated with resilience, emotional balance, and flexible thinking.
- Even short, regular practices can improve focus, memory, and overall wellbeing.
Building any new habit takes time. It helps to link it to something you already do, for example, just after lunch, before a regular meeting, or at the start of your workday especially when you first wake.
To make it easy to begin, here is a four-minute guided audio practice that guides you in some mindfulness practices. You can use it anytime you need to reset during the day.
