Once dismissed as ‘hippie tosh’, this practice is now giving people a competitive edge

When mindfulness began its journey into the mainstream in the 1970s, the idea was perhaps best associated with dreamers sitting and swaying and smelling of patchouli, attempting to find some sense of Buddhist enlightenment. The practice was – to some – hippie tosh. However, the process of focusing awareness on the present moment – on thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations – has since been clinically proven to help overcome stress and depression, anxiety and addiction. So it’s hardly surprising that mindfulness has taken on a decidedly corporate flavour, its newest practitioners touted less as meditative gurus and more as guides to productivity.

The United States has Dr Michael Gervais, a “high-performance psychologist” whose popular Finding Mastery podcast features interviews with everyone from Seattle Seahawks NFL coach Pete Carroll (who used mindfulness to drive his team to a Super Bowl victory) to Australia’s hero cave-diver Dr Richard Harris. In Britain, there’s Jay Shetty, a former monk who uses his social-media following to turn traditional mindfulness messages into TikToks, helping people navigate modern life as part of his aim to “make wisdom go viral”.

Australia has its own practitioners, few positioned as prominently as Emma Murray. Murray, 48, runs High Performance Mindfulness, whose clients include the Richmond Football Club and the NSW Swifts netball team, IndyCar driver Scott McLaughlin and Olympic gold-medal-winning pool queen Cate Campbell. And now, from her office in Melbourne’s Sandringham, Murray develops programs for major banks, government authorities and schools, too.

Murray trains her clients to first identify the physical and mental sensations that occur when they’re not at their best: everything from a wandering mind to a slouch in posture. Then she develops tools to help them once they catch themselves drifting, which could be anything from a breathing routine to an “anchor word” that they can repeat like a personalised mantra, snapping them back into focus.

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It’s still about stress reduction, and being present, and pursuing enlightenment, she says, but also about excelling in our high-pressure, high-expectation world.

“If we get to the end of the day and we were unproductive or we feel we messed up, we can replay it over and again and beat ourselves up. The focus now is on a form of mindfulness designed to equip us for today’s pressures and today’s pace.”

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