What a Psychologist Does to Destress

Annika McGivern is our Performance Psychologist and one of the most composed humans you’ll ever come across. Maybe that’s something to do with her Canadian nature or maybe it’s all the mental agility she performs. Either way you definitely want to check out her tactics for returning to serenity amidst the madness. Annika has given us three simple tactics to deploy when we start to feel a little overwhelmed.

1. Box Breathing

Structured breathing exercise where you. Breath in for a count of 4, hold for 4, out for 6, hold for 2 and repeat.

2. The ‘reverse gap’

Spend 30 seconds focusing on everything you have achieved in the last year or two, instead of focusing on everything you want to/have yet to achieve.

3. Float in Your Lake

The idea here is that we all have a “place” of wellbeing inside of us that we can choose to access at any time. Close your eyes and imagine this place is a beautiful lake and take a minute to float in this lake, the sun beaming on your face. When you’re in the lake you are immediately at peace, there is no need to do anything else.

P.S The image at the top of the page is our lake (granted it’s a sea but it works the same). We took this pic in Hong Kong en route to Australia. There is no better place to float. Feel free to use this image for your visualisation. We’ll maybe even see you on our lake, we’ll be the ones floating past on a lilo shaped like a swan.