A few months ago, I was working with a client in his early sixties. He had spent most of his career leading teams, managing complex projects and carrying the responsibilities that often come with professional success. Like many of the people I work with, he was intelligent, highly capable and deeply committed to his work. Yet despite exercising regularly and maintaining what most people would consider a healthy lifestyle, he often felt tired, tense and mentally exhausted. He

As a resilience and performance coach, I help busy and stressed professionals create alignment, cultivate equanimity, and boost vitality by integrating practical mind, body and lifestyle strategies. One of my main roles is to help clients get better at stress. This involves developing and embedding skills and tools that help better regulate their nervous system and stress response. Self-regulation is your nervous system’s ability to shift between “go mode” and “recover mode”

It’s an early morning in Melbourne, midway through May. It’s a frigid one degree Celsius and the morning sunrise is yet to break. The...