Experience: I am the world champion of ‘doing nothing’ | Life and style

From a very young age, I was worried if I was doing enough. Having grown up in Hong Kong, a city where the competition is passionate, I wanted to do. This has brought a lot of anxiety.

I started to practice mindfulness in 2012. It helps a lot with my emotions, and I can think more clearly. As an educational psychologist, I see a lot of mental health problems. I think that bringing it out of mindfulness to our schools is an important way to find moments of calm, especially in the fast city of Hong Kong.

This is what attracted me to space competition – a competition to do nothing. I saw it announced on social networks last year. The founder, the Korean artist WoopSyang, said that there was a lot of societal pressure to always be productive, so it is important to appreciate downtime.

Wooopsyang began spatial competition in Seoul in 2014. It was a performance piece that involved people in competition to do nothing and “space” for 90 minutes. Since then, there have been competitions all over the world, held several times a year.

I entered Hong Kong last October. It was a hot afternoon and the event took place in an open space inside an animated shopping center in the center of the city. There were many spectators who chat. A hundred people participated, each seated on a yoga carpet which had been perfectly arranged in the square.

We were guided through a series of stretching before setting up for 90 minutes. You must sit there without any significant movement; You can’t sleep, make noise or check your phone.

After the end of time, the last 10 participants are voted by the spectators, probably on the basis of our statements on the reasons for which we joined the competition and our expressions during the 90 minutes. The cardiac frequencies of the finalists are measured throughout – the one with the most stable is the winner.

Every 15 minutes, the judges come to measure your heart rate. These approaches make you nervous. I could feel my heart beat faster, but I tried to see it as a way to practice acceptance – to notice these feelings of tension and try not to force me to relax.

We all have stray minds – my thoughts jumped from my family, to the sound of the wind in the trees, to the fan by humming around us. But you just take note. You observe it, like seeing the clouds in the sky and how they come and go.

I paid attention to my breath, to the feelings of my body and to my thoughts and emotions. I focused on the feeling of breeze through my skin, noticing subtle changes in the environment and how they affected my body. Although this is a “space out” competition, I was doing the opposite: actively practicing mindfulness, observing my mind and my breath.

After about 30 minutes, I remembered that we were judged by the spectators, so I tried to imagine what would be like being spaced. I dropped my glasses in my nose and I sat like this during the next hour.

When they announced that the competition was over, I wanted to sit longer. I have a busy life – alongside my work, I study and I have two children, aged 11 and nine – so having this space was a luxury, especially in this world where our minds are stimulated all day. Often we can spend a day and our mind may not have contained for a second.

I was surprised when I was announced as winner. I understand that, for many people, sitting in silence for 90 minutes would be a nightmare, but I found it very pleasant.

I think it is essential to take the time to come back to us. In many regions of the world, people live day after day, never stopping – it’s as if stopping was a kind of laziness. Although the event is only for 90 minutes, it gave us a way to be ourselves, and I hope it reminds people that productivity is not always the most important thing.

The trophy I won is based on The Thinker Statue of Rodin. It is in my living room, and I see it as a reminder that we must all save at least a few minutes a day to allow us to do things that feed us, or simply to have space to do nothing. It’s a gift.

As Naomi Larsson Piñeda said

Do you have experience to share? Send an email to l’experience@theguardian.com