Kicking off the work year can be a great time to refresh, reset, and zone in on your goals for the year ahead. All good in theory, right?
But before you know it, the hamster wheel begins. Deadlines! Urgent projects! KPIs to hit before the end of the financial year! Oh, such joy.
If stress comes a little too easily to you (like it does for this author), now’s the time to break the cycle and create stress management habits that stick – before the hamster wheel starts spinning out of control.
Embracing a ‘mental fitness’ regime
Sarah La Roche, CEO of Australian mental health not-for-profit Smiling Mind, believes these can be tiny moments of ‘mental fitness’ — like going to the gym for your brain.
“We want the concept of mental fitness to convey to people the ability they have to proactively build skills to support greater mental wellbeing,” La Roche tells SmartCompany.
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“You can do this every day, much like how you go to the gym, walk or practice yoga to support your physical wellbeing.”
Starting as a mindfulness app back in 2012, Smiling Mind has since become a global force in pre-emptive mental health care, with supporting programs for homes and schools.
For kids, Smiling Mind provides evidence-based mindfulness programs for schools, with its education program impacting over 1700 schools across the country. Its website also features special resources for parents and educators, like the ‘Help Kids Navigate Distressing Events’ collection (highly relevant in today’s world).
For people of all ages, the free Smiling Mind app continues to be a popular source of daily mental fitness, with more than 9.8 million downloads. The app features toolkits of guided exercises and meditations to improve daily mental health for all ages, stages and routines. All it takes is a few minutes of your day, and you’ve exercised an important muscle.
La Roche recommends Smiling Mind’s Stress Toolkit at this time of year, precisely because things are just starting up again, and being proactive about mental fitness will keep you match-fit for when stress arrives.
“We can use times of calm and stability to our advantage by practising these skills, not only when we’re under intense pressure and seek support through a treatment lens,” says La Roche.
“Because the skills that help us cope, reset, and thrive work best when they’ve been built over time. You wouldn’t start training for a marathon the day before the race, and it’s the same with our minds.”
Being aware of your body’s stress response is the first step. Then come the practical skills to keep your nervous system in check, or calm it down if you’re in a rut.
The Stress Toolkit includes eight exercises like:
- A four-minute body scan to centre yourself during the day
- A nine-minute ‘Sounds, Body, Breath’ attention exercise
- A seven-minute ‘Separating Thoughts Technique’ to let go of unhelpful thoughts
- An untimed lesson in turning pressure into power
If you don’t find what you want in that toolkit, other sessions in the app hone in specifically on issues like sleeping better, managing emotions, enhancing focus and more.
Download the Smiling Mind app and search ‘Stress Toolkit’ to give it a try..
Smiling Mind co-founder and chair Janey Martino will be speaking at SmartCompany’s and Startup Daily‘s Growth Summit in Melbourne on February 25, 2026. The Growth Summit brings together Australia’s top founders, CEOs, global innovators, VCs and leaders from the country’s fastest-growing startups and scale-ups.
View the full program of speakers and get your tickets now.
