There is a tendency in both our business and private lives to hide how we really feel.

This can lead to us going a long way down a particular road before we are finally forced to admit that it wasn’t the road we would have liked to have been on in the first place.

Life can be very confusing – we have ever more demands placed on us by society, family, work. How do we know what to do for the best?

Is it enough to just put our heads down and soldier on, throwing ourselves into the fray of work and socialising in the hope that it will all work out in the end?

Doing this tends to build up a pool of unexpressed emotions, which over time begin to exert an increasingly negative influence on our relationships, health and careers.

It can really help to take just 5 or 10 minutes a day to be still. Just by sitting in silence (yes, even turn off the phone) and breathing regularly, we will begin to discover and appreciate what is of most importance to us.

You don’t have to do anything except be still and breathe regularly. Don’t try to focus or concentrate – just relax.

If thoughts bubble up, just be calm and watch them disappear again.

Over time, the discipline of sitting still and breathing regularly in silence will become something that you look forward to each day.

Eventually, you will find that you become more intuitive and that life is easier to cope with.

You will be more connected to yourself and your emotions – and will make better, more informed decisions.

It won’t happen the first time you do it (unless you’re very lucky) and the effect is quite subtle.

But in time, you will wonder how you ever got by without it.