I've been working in advertising for probably about 18 years and it's quite a high-stress industry. I have also been a meditator for about 15 years and most of the time I've been meditating, I really saw a difference in how I would handle stress.

Meditation just gave me a bit of an evenness. I love the metaphor of surfing for meditation, because when you are swimming in the sea, often you get pummeled around by these waves and these ups and downs. When you learn to surf, there are still the same waves, the same ups and downs, but you learn to handle them a little bit more skillfully.

There are a lot of different definitions of mindfulness. I think the most common one is, to intentionally pay attention to the present moment with an attitude of non-judgment.

When we get overloaded with stress, it's almost like the panic button gets jammed, constantly these signals of danger are coming to us and there's nothing we can do about it. Our body reacts in quite a primitive way. The limbic system takes over and we go into fight, flight or freeze mode.

A lot of studies on meditation actually show that meditation can physically alter the structure of your brain, which is quite amazing. New advances in neuroplasticity have seen that grey matter in certain areas of your brain expands from practising meditation. When you're practising meditation, you're using specific neural pathways which, every time you practice, get more pronounced and easier to access. 

One of the ways is a project called Sanity Sessions that I've been working on with my partner, Helen, where we send you every day an email with five minutes of yoga and five minutes of meditation. These are quick little sessions that you can fit into your day that just help you pause and reconnect with yourself.

So thinking you're going to meditate for two hours every day is quite a high expectation, but it's fine to start off with five minutes and see how that goes. Eventually, it'll get longer and longer as you go. It's more important to do it regularly than to do it every now and again for long periods of time.

In mindfulness meditation, we use the breath as a meditation object. This is something that is happening right here and now because the breath is constantly flowing. It's always moving. It's always here. It's always now, it's always accessible to us. 

One way is to get a meditation teacher to come and give classes, but there are also a lot of very simple, small ways that we can incorporate mindfulness. For example, just taking a minute of silence before we start a big meeting is a great way to just ground everybody, get rid of any preconceptions and bring everyone into the present in a state that is ready to interact.

If you can take a seated position, sit in a position that you're comfortable in yet alert.

Try to straighten the spine and relax the shoulders and then gently close the eyes.

Take a deep breath in and then exhale the breath, letting it go. How are we going to release control of the breath? Just letting it flow normally and naturally.

Let's bring our attention to the sensations of the breath flowing in and out of the nostrils. Remember, it's completely normal to get distracted or for your mind to wander to thoughts, sensations and emotions, taking you away from the breath. When that happens, just notice and keep bringing your attention back to the breath.

Inhale and then exhale, feeling the physical sensation of the air going in and out of your nostrils.

If the breath is long, allow it to be long. If it's short, allow it to be short. It's made to flow normally, naturally.