As governance demands intensify and decision-making grows more complex, director wellbeing has shifted from a personal concern to a critical performance factor.
Workplace discussions about the wellbeing of senior leaders may be common now, but in past years they were not high on the agenda. After all, who has time for breathwork and meditation while setting organisational strategy and governance oversight? Surely stress and fatigue come with the territory?
But in today’s high-pressure governance landscape, directors require more than technical competence. Clarity, cognitive stamina, emotional regulation and surge capacity are now vital for navigating increasingly complex decision-making environments.
Director wellbeing has now become a performance imperative, not a personal luxury, but research from Deloitte shows more than 80 per cent of senior leaders report a level of exhaustion typical of burnout risk.
“The speed and complexity in the corporate world have increased exponentially,” says executive coach Sue Rosen, FCA, PCC. “The volume of information directors are expected to absorb is phenomenal and the hours many leaders put in keeps growing.”
A new year is a time for setting new habits, so how can you reset your mental and physical energy to lead with clarity and resilience in 2026?
A strategic reset
Dr Paul Taylor, psychophysiologist and author of The Hardiness Effect, says cognitive strain is linked to impaired judgement and increased bias.
“People who experience significant stress develop hyper vigilance to threat,” he says. “They start to scan the environment non-consciously for bad stuff and they linger on it longer. When they’re highly stressed, the frontal lobes of the brain, which are the seat of planning, judgement and impulse control, basically go out to lunch.”
Andrew May, founder and CEO of Performance Intelligence, says director wellbeing underpins sustainable performance.
“Some directors sit on multiple boards, so how do you go from a board meeting for a bank to then thinking about your telco board as well as your consulting work without a good psychological base?” he asks. “If you train for it, you’re able to be present and fit for the task, rather than just leaving it to chance.”
Just like physical training, a wellbeing reset requires deliberate periods of recovery.
“Most of the improvements in sustainable athletic performance in the past decade particularly have not been in training methods, but in recovery methods,” says Taylor, who stresses a difference between recovery and relaxation.
“Sitting on your couch at the end of the day with a bottle of wine watching Netflix with your spouse is not recovery, it’s relaxation,” he says. “I’m not saying there’s no place for that, but don’t kid yourself you’re recovering. Recovering is the stuff that restores and renews your energy.”
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Routines for a reset
May says a wellbeing reset routine should start in the morning.
“Within 30 minutes of waking, get some sunshine to activate your circadian rhythm and boost alertness, and move your body to increase cerebral blood flow,” says May. “Delay coffee to stabilise cortisol levels and avoid checking emails during this time.”
Bringing structure to work routines can also strengthen focus and composure. May says “pulsing” through work and recovery cycles helps to regulate heart rate and calm the nervous system.
“Every 60 to 90 minutes, drop the intensity of your focus for a 30-second to three-minute reset,” he says. “When a tennis player bounces the ball in between games, they are backing off their energy so they can prepare to hit the ball at 100mph.”
Taylor recommends adopting the Pomodoro technique, a time management method that breaks work into 25-minute intervals, separated by five-minute breaks.
“A five-minute brain-booster break involves moving your body, because sitting for long periods of time results in reduced blood flow and oxygen to the brain,” he says. “Walk up and down some flights of stairs quickly to get a little bit out of breath. Drink some water, because dehydration kills cognitive performance.”
Rosen adds that structured breathwork throughout the day can improve mental clarity and emotional regulation.
“Breathwork is a useful strategy to reset your parasympathetic nervous system to switch from ‘fight or flight’ mode,” she says. “Take a deep inhale, top up the breath twice through your nose and then take a long, slow exhale through your mouth, as if you were blowing out through a straw.”
Lessons from the top
Sustaining clarity and resilience also requires setting boundaries around work and home life, such as choosing when to switch off from work emails and phone calls. May also recommends turning off electronic devices at least 30 minutes before going to bed.
“The light from your mobile phone hits your pineal gland and you get a cascade of chemicals that will affect your sleep quality,” he says.
Setting boundaries and habits for optimal wellbeing will not only promote your own performance in 2026, it will also set the tone for others.
“All aspects of culture trickle down through an organisation from the top, so if directors can carry out their responsibilities with a degree of clarity and focus, that will enable them to make better decisions while role modelling emotional regulation,” says Rosen.
“To improve our self-awareness, we need to create space to reflect on how things affect us and how we respond to them,” she adds. “The only way we can do that is to create pauses in our daily operations to observe those things and look after our wellbeing.”
Start 2026 with clarity
Practise breathwork
- Regular intervals of slow, controlled breathing calm the mind and body while reducing stress and anxiety — and it can be practised anywhere.
Take short, brain-boosting work breaks
- The brain requires both active and down time to perform at its best. Introduce energy renewal cycles of five minutes every half an hour — or failing that, every hour.
Build movement into your day
- Short bursts of movement renew energy and burn stress hormones, so walk a few flights of stairs rather than taking the lift, or get off the train a stop early and briskly walk the rest of the way to the office.
Establish a morning wellbeing routine
- Support your physiological capacity during the first 30 minutes of your day through light exposure and movement — and delay your coffee intake and tech time.
Practise sound mental health skills
- Practising these skills can reinforce resilience and psychological hardiness. “Activities like journalling externalise mental load and support clarity and pattern recognition,” says May. “Positive self-talk techniques help with cognitive reframing to strengthen confidence and reduce stress reactivity.”
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