Headspace & The ROI of Mindfulness | Tom Pickett & Dr. Jenna Glover
51:14 Share

Welcome to the Talks at Google podcast, where great minds meet. I'm Emma, bringing you this episode with Headspace CEO Tom Pickett and Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Jenna Glover. Talks at Google brings the world's most influential thinkers, creators, makers, and doers all to one place. You can watch every episode at youtube.com slash talks at google.

Headspace's mission is to provide every person with access to lifelong mental health support. Tom Pickett and Dr. Jenna Glover join Google to discuss the benefits of incorporating mindfulness practices into your personal and professional life. They share strategies to improve focus, reduce stress, enhance well-being, and boost productivity.

Before joining Headspace, Tom's prior roles include his time as the chief revenue officer at DoorDash, the CEO of digital media company Crunchyroll, and over a decade at Google. Before entering the corporate world, he graduated from Top Gun and served for nearly a decade as a fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy.

Dr. Jenna Glover is a licensed psychologist who previously served as an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and director of psychology training at Children's Hospital Colorado. Her clinical work focuses on utilizing motivational interviewing and acceptance-based therapies across a range of internalizing disorders.

Here are Tom Pickett and Dr. Jenna Glover, Headspace and the ROI of mindfulness. I'm so glad that you're here. I'm actually fangirling a little bit. What I didn't tell you when we met just a second ago is that Headspace got me through grad school. My kids listen to your sleep tracks. They are learning how to self-regulate at night and have learned a lot of self-regulation skills through your app. And so I'm excited to meet them.

the voices behind the app and what is so important to me and my family. So I'm wondering first, what brought you to Headspace? I can go first. Okay. So the mission is really the thing that brought me to Headspace. If you think about

Mental health today. It's a it's one of the biggest problems. I think we have in our society It's only getting bigger It's affecting the younger generation even more than it is the older generation in fact You know one in five people are said to have a mental health condition and only about 60% of those are actually 60% of those don't ever receive any treatment for that and

And we also know that it's about a trillion dollars in lost productivity based on depression and anxiety. So if you want a big problem to go solve, that seems like a pretty big problem. And if you think about what is the solution today, what do people say when you say, I have a mental health issue? They say, oh, you're going to go talk to a therapist, right? And a therapist is typically a one-on-one person.

human-driven 45-minute session once a week. So talk about a non-scalable solution to a big problem. So I think there's a lot of other things that we can do. And particularly in the advent of AI and Gen AI, I think mental health is going to look quite different in the next two or three years than it does today, at least in terms of the tools that are available. So anyway, super excited to take a swing.

at this problem and see what we can do. Yeah, absolutely. So for me, so I've been in mental health care my whole entire life. And I've always been driven by a curiosity about what supports mental wellness, not just treats mental illness, but like helps us build that capacity. And so it was April 2021. And I was in my office at Children's Hospital Colorado, I got a call from the emergency department.

And they said, can you please come down here? We're calling any available mental health provider because they had dozens of kids who were waiting for urgent mental health evaluations. Now, some of those kids had been waiting for 24 to 48 hours to be seen. And if you've ever been to an emergency department, can you imagine waiting two days to get care? And, you know, we just didn't have enough providers or space to give them timely access to care. And a lot of those kids were there not because the crisis came out of nowhere, but because they weren't able to get support or connected to resources before then.

And so that wasn't just happening at Children's Hospital. That was happening all over the nation for both youth and adults. And that was a very sobering moment that stayed with me. It showed how broken the system was. As Tom was saying, not everybody needs therapy. Most people don't. But everybody needs tools to support their mental well-being so that it stays strong. And I think when people do need therapy, they need to get connected to it immediately. So I wanted to be part of reimagining what mental health care could look like.

and that it was more accessible, preventable, and strength-based. So that's what brought me to Headspace. Amazing. And you're so right, right? Scaling therapists is hard, especially if your goal is to get care as soon as possible that is high quality, evidence-based, to as many people as possible as soon as possible. That is not one-to-one therapy. It's just not possible from a workforce development perspective to get there.

And that definitely resonates with me as a clinician too. We're talking about mental health, full spectrum. We're also talking about mindfulness. And I'm curious, kind of what makes mindfulness important to you?

And how would you kind of define it for our folks in the audience who might not be as familiar with the concept? - Yeah, maybe you can define it and then I'll jump on top of it. - Okay, so, well, and you asked two questions. - I did. - You asked two questions. - I'm so sorry, I did the double barrel question. - Do you want me to define it first or talk about why it matters?

Let's define it first. Let's define it. Yeah. Okay. So mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to the present moment on purpose, doing so with openness, curiosity, and nonjudgmentalness. So when you think about mindfulness, there's really like a what and a how to it. The what is that you are directing your attention to what's happening right now, and you're doing so with curiosity and with kindness rather than with evaluation and judgment.

And so one of the common misconceptions that people actually have about mindfulness is it's about emptying your mind or stopping your thoughts. And that is not the goal. Like this thing makes noise. It just does. Like you're thinking all of the time. And so the goal of mindfulness is to help us notice our thoughts without getting swept away in them.

So instead of getting caught in a spiral of something like, I can't believe that person said that thing, or I'm so angry, or I shouldn't feel this way. Instead, what mindfulness does is just help us notice those things like clouds passing in the sky. So it's like, oh, anger. Oh, thinking. Oh, judgment. And it's not that things are good or bad. They just are what they are. And that helps us respond to life with more awareness and less reactivity. So that's how I would define mindfulness. Paying attention on purpose.

which is really not something that we're always great at. It's really hard, right? Because our mind is just chattery all the time. Even now, I noticed as you were talking that my mind kind of veers away and then it comes back and it veers away and comes back. And I think we're doing that a lot in the background without even really noticing. And there's something special that happens when we bring intentionality to ourselves.

How our mind is paying attention to the world to ourselves to what's happening And then I think I asked you why is it important? Yeah, right so If you think about the world that we live in right now You know, there's so much going on so much chaos even within your work life, right? you're probably thinking about you know your next meeting and those types of things and

So I think this idea of practicing mindfulness really helps you bring that calmness. We've run over 70 studies

And we've been able to prove that practicing mindfulness and meditation helps reduce anxiety, helps reduce stress, increases workforce resilience and productivity. And it just really allows you to be more in that present moment, to have more thoughtful discussions, to have better relationships at work. So if you think about why that's important, certainly from a business perspective, I think you want people to be able to like

you know, depress some of the signal from the chaos in the world, right? And really focus in on, you know, what they need to get done. And that's the power of this. So I'll talk about it from a mental health perspective. So your mind is the lens through which you experience the world, like every single moment of every single day for your entire life. And yet we often overlook how to care for it.

So like, just let that sink in. This is our lens and we don't really think about cleaning it or caring for it. From a really young age, we teach kids how to care for their teeth. My five-year-olds can tell you to take care of the sugar bugs, your brush and your floss. And we also know from a pretty young age, like it's important to exercise and eat well for heart health. But what about the health of your mind?

And so this is, to me, the power of mindfulness, which is that it is very impactful and it's very accessible. And what it does is it helps us care for the health of our mind through helping us, first of all, understand how the mind works.

So this sometimes is a groundbreaking thought for people, but we are not our thoughts and emotions. We are separate from them, and we can actually observe them. And when we are able to do that, we can change our relationship from one of reactivity towards awareness. And also, I would say, as a clinical psychologist, over the last few decades, we've seen amazing advancements in evidence-based practices.

practices. And some of our most effective treatments have mindfulness as an essential component. So these are called third wave therapies, dialectical behavior therapy, we were talking about beforehand, acceptance and commitment therapy. Like these are things that have a huge evidence base and all of them have mindfulness as foundational. So why is that?

Well, when you look at people who practice mindfulness, first of all, they score high on psychological flexibility. So being able to see things from multiple points of view. Second, emotion regulation. They're able to turn up pleasant emotions and turn down the intensity of overwhelming emotions. And then third, which Tom's talking about, you adapt better to change. And there's a heck of a lot of change happening, so that's a really good skill. Those are three of the most important predictors of strong mental health. And they all come from a mindfulness practice.

So whether you're talking about developing wellness or early intervention or treatment, mindfulness isn't just helpful. It is a foundational component.

Yeah, absolutely. And I would also say that I think that the three things that you said are the foundation of good mental health are also key skills for us here as Googlers, needing to adapt, needing to think flexibly, deal with ambiguity, turn up or turn down the intensity with which we approach and solve problems. And so I can see how mindfulness is so important to the work that we do, absolutely.

And certainly when I think about mindfulness and I think about who is leading in that space, Headspace is absolutely the name that comes to mind. And so I'm wondering, Tom, if you can talk a little bit about what your vision is for Headspace. And yeah. Yeah, I think it builds off some of what Jenna said is that we believe that mental health resources are like mental health is for everyone.

A lot of times when you talk about mental health, it's like, oh, it's somebody who's identified that they have some sort of challenge that they want to work through. And we 100% believe that this is something that everyone should think about, just like you go to the gym, just like you're supposed to get your 10,000 steps done.

like what are you doing for your mind, right? And so at Headspace, we're trying to build an end-to-end mental health platform from mindfulness and meditation. We've also added coaching, therapy, psychiatry, and we're adding journaling and we'll add more AI modalities as we go forward. The idea is that we're going to have this big toolkit and we recognize that

You know, anybody's mental health journey starts someplace and, you know, you have more needs at some point, you have less needs at another point. And so we want to be able to have a platform where you can just come in and you don't necessarily know what you need.

I think that's one of the reasons why people don't seek mental health, right? It's because they're like, I don't know, do I need a therapist? Do I need a coach? Do I need to meditate? What do I need? So we want to be able to bring people in in a very accessible way, help them figure out the toolkit that would be best for them.

and help them navigate through that. So we say, you know, sort of end-to-end mental health, but I think the key point is, like, this is for everybody, not just for those who think they have a challenge to work through. Yeah, I think that's super important. And, you know, what we say in DBT or in dialectical behavior therapy is, I have a question, but I don't know what it is.

And it sounds like Headspace is kind of solving for that, right? It's like, I've got this kind of set of things that I am hoping to either supercharge or get support with or whatever, and I can find that at Headspace. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, and by the way, if you think about why people don't engage

With mental health resources, one, stigma can still be an issue. Yeah, absolutely. And so with Headspace and try to really position it as just, this is like going to the gym, right? It becomes very accessible, something that you talk to your friends about, something that you're proud of, right? You're like, yeah, I take care of my mind.

right? So stigma, access, and price, right? Affordability, you know, depending on what your situation is. So we're trying to find ways to, you know, bring people in at the lower end, increase access through working with employers, working with health plans, and then ultimately technology, right? Technology is going to play a big role. I mean,

You were talking about therapy. Therapy is great, but not everyone's going to have access to therapy. Think about on the global scale, there aren't therapists all over the world for people to work with, right? And so we're going to have human solutions. We're going to have technology solutions. We're going to have human and technology solutions. And so I think the key is how do we find that right mix? But in doing so, I think we can really bring down the cost structure

of mental health support, which should then allow us to unlock much more broadly. Yeah. I think it sounds like there are a lot of very exciting things happening at Headspace. I'm wondering if you had to pick your top thing, what are you most excited about right now? Both of you, actually. Yeah. I'll just start because I said I think mental health is going to change pretty radically over the next... Mental health solutions are going to change pretty radically over the next

several years, if the primary mode of interaction in mental health is conversation, then I think having gen AI and conversational AI is going to transform

the set of tools and capabilities that we can have going forward. So that's one of the, you know, I think a lot of things are going to get reinvented over the next couple of years. And we're at this point and Jenna's going to help us do that in the right way. But I think it's an incredibly exciting period of time because I feel like we're stuck because the solutions we have available, which is like some number of therapists, is not solving the problem.

Yeah. Same. And what I would say is...

We, I talked about it earlier, we have a huge access problem. And I think I'm so excited about the potential of AI to provide access to real time support that we've just not been able to scale. The second thing is, I think AI will open up doors for people who would have never gone to traditional care. The reality is that sometimes people go to a therapist, and even though it's a very safe place, people are like, I can't tell that to my therapist.

And there's something really powerful about the fact that you can have a supportive resource in an agent, an AI agent, that somebody might say, you know what, I actually think I might have a significant substance use problem. And that might be the first time they've been able to say that out loud and it feels safe.

So there's always going to be a cohort of people who human care is going to be best. There's going to be a cohort of people that AI is going to actually be really helpful. And for most people, it's going to be some type of combination. And so I think we're excited to be leaders in the space of how do you do this in a really ethical, effective, and engaging way because it has the possibility to fill these massive gaps in mental health care that we've never been able to fill before. Amazing. You know the fastest growing thing in mental health? What? Yeah.

What is the fastest-growing? It's people talking to Gemini. It's people talking to ChatGVT, right? So you guys know this. So the leading indicators are there, right? And so whether it's ready for it or not, people are doing it and embracing it, and it's growing at an exponential scale. So we're trying to figure out the right way to do it, the safe way to do it.

But that's a huge opportunity. I love that. I recently, actually to that point, recently read some report, and I'm forgetting the source of it right now, that one of the top ways people are engaging with AI is for some kind of support. Yes. So let's switch gears for a second and get to the actual ROI of mindfulness. I think we've talked about it theoretically.

And I think we've talked about it in terms of this kind of like big picture perspective. But I'm also wondering, like you've made the case for mindfulness and, of course, end-to-end mental health solutions being key to making sure we're successful at work. I do sometimes, and likened it to taking care of our bodies, brushing our teeth, exercise, all of those different things.

And I know like for me, and I would guess maybe allegedly for you, I know that you're all probably perfect at taking care of yourselves, right? Because that's easy all the time. There is this delta between what we know we should do and what best practice is for ourselves, for our loved ones.

and actually getting there and doing it. And so I'm curious, kind of like for people who are curious about mindfulness, about like starting there, where would you suggest they start? - Yeah, so very common question we get. Something I've shared with myself. So the first thing is like you're trying to get acquainted. I would say use resources and tools to help you enter the space. So you all have access to the Headspace app. It's awesome.

So you should download it. And we have a basics course. And the basics course is a great way to enter to just get acquainted with mindfulness. Or if you haven't done mindfulness for a while, it's a great way to come back to it. So I think that's like a super easy light lift way to get into it.

Um, the, the other thing I would say is thinking about just how do you integrate a little bit of mindfulness into like every day. So many of us, when we wake up in the morning, the first thing we do is reach for our phones, uh, check the weather, check the news, check, you know, like your emails, um,

not necessarily like the most bucket filling activity of the day. So instead, could you just reach for the phone and open the Headspace app and just do like a mindful breathing activity or just leave the phone there and take just two minutes and lay mindfully in bed. Just like notice your breath coming in and out. It doesn't have to be big, but it can be helpful. Or like think I talk about habit barnacles, like you already have habits. They're just like

blob something on there. So when I'm in the shower, one of the things they do is whenever I shampoo my hair, it's my moment of mindfulness for the day. So I think I look at the bottle just in the present moment, like what the lather feels like, the temperature of the water. It's like 30 seconds. I don't know if that's how long you're supposed to shampoo for. It's like 30 seconds, not the whole shower, but it's the time I tune in. Also, I don't know if you're like me, but sometimes I get through and I'm like, wait, have I shampooed

my hair. I'm on the conditioner. Like, so it's also a great way just to, you know, keep yourself grounded in your shower. I think the most important thing is you structure tools, do something very small. Um, I like to use the analogy of just like a 1% difference. And so if you get on a plane at LAX and you're headed, uh, to, to New York, to JFK, and you change the flight plan by a couple of degrees, you actually will end up in Washington, DC.

And there's something to be said that like, you don't have to do big impactful things to make a difference. You can do something just so small that just that one minute of breathing before you look at the phone that over the long course can put you somewhere really different. And I have to tell you that I use that analogy a lot when I speak. And once a commercial pilot came up afterwards and was like, love the spirit of what you just said, kind of a lot more complicated than that. Yeah.

So just wanted you to know. And I was like, I will let people know whenever I use that analogy. And I feel really like that's important given that I'm sitting next to a pilot right now. I was going to say, but the spirit of it, just a little different. The other thing I would add is in terms of an entry point, because I think, you know, meditation can be a little bit daunting for folks and they call it a practice for a reason, just like yoga. It's like, you're always perfecting, right? You're never perfect. There's not a destination. Yeah.

So it takes a little, you know, find that entry point. But a very common one for people is all around sleep.

And this is one that I personally struggle with, particularly on Sunday nights when my mind is just gearing up for the week. And then I find myself laying in bed for two hours trying to figure out how to get my mind to calm. So I think that's another great point because if you can just do a wind down, like you could spend five to 10 minutes

uh on a wind down and you know just really calm your mind and go to sleep even though sometimes it feels better just to go into bed but then you you turn but it's a very common entry point is why why i um bring it up and it also just starts to focus you on the breathing techniques the same it's a lot of the same stuff that you'll get in a meditation but i think it's

much more accessible for people to go, "I'm just working on my sleep." That seems like an easy enough thing. And guess what? Sleep is also a daily habit because we go to bed every night. So it's a good way to start as well. I love that. I use the Headspace Sleep Tracks all the time. In fact, I used it last night as my mind was kind of like chattering about this moment that we're having right here. Making sure I make you look good.

And I think it does kind of help. One of the things that, for me, I've noticed-- and I'm wondering if you can kind of speak to this-- when I started out with mindfulness, I needed a lot of structure in terms of the guided aspect of it. Because I erroneously thought that mindfulness is just kind of like I sit in a corner and just blink. So can you talk a little bit about any misconceptions associated with that? Not that any of you would have any misconceptions about mindfulness, but can you talk a little bit about that?

It reminds me, so there's several, so first of all, you can't do mindfulness right or wrong. You're like not building a product, you're engaging in a process. So there's no right or wrong way to do it. It's just something you're practicing. And I remember several years ago, I was working with a member and we were doing a mindful breathing activity. The goal, just like notice your breath coming in and out. We're just going to do that.

And we get done and she's like, look, I can't do this. Like the whole time my mind just kept going somewhere else. I kept trying to go back to the breath and then my mind would just go away. And I kept trying to come back to the breath. And I was like, that's mindfulness. It's not fun, but it's really helpful. That's what mindfulness is. Your mind is constantly making noise.

Some of that noise is helpful. A lot of it is not. And so being able to notice and separate from the noise is the power of mindfulness. And you will get lost in it. And then you bring yourself back. And you get lost and you bring yourself back. I'm a runner, so I run often. And again, there's no like...

I was going to say there's no right or wrong way to run, but I have seen how some people run. There might be. But in general, there's not a right or wrong way. Like sometimes I have a good run and I feel great. And sometimes I have a great mindfulness practice and I feel refreshed. And sometimes I have a run where I'm like, have I ever ran before? Like that's terrible. And sometimes I have mindfulness practices where I'm like, I was gone the whole time.

But the idea is that the power comes in just being able to practice again. And just like running, the more consistently you do it, the greater the health outcomes. But it's not about staying in the moment. It's about noticing when you go away and practicing coming back. And that's the muscle you're building. And again, sometimes that's really fun and pleasant. And sometimes it's really hard. But that's the practice. Yeah, it is hard. It's deceptively hard, right? Because it seems like it would be easy, but it is indeed not.

Go ahead. So I didn't grow up meditating, and this is newer to me. But I think this notion of like, gosh, I'm not good at it is like a real thing for people who are trying it. And then after you do it a bunch, you're like, okay, no, no, no, actually, this is okay. It's natural. My mind is going to wander away.

But I think it's really tricky for people that really have the right mindset when they go into it. And they're like, I don't think I'm doing this right. And again, there is no right. It's the fact of doing it. So I think it's really important that it's really like an optimization. It's like a good health, healthy habit. I keep coming back to this because often my mind runs to like,

I'm using these tools to help solve a problem versus I'm using these tools to live a better life, to optimize. I mean, many of you probably wear the Oura Ring and track your sleep and those kind of things. And so for me, that's been really powerful that actually when I do this, I can sleep better. I can

I can reduce some of the stress if I've got a big, big thing to do as a leader. I've now got some like breathing exercises I can do beforehand. So anyway, that's just, yeah, I mean, I'm a, you know, I'm not a lifelong meditator, so I'm just sharing some of my experience. But I think that that's so important, right? Like that you don't have to be a lifelong meditator to kind of venture into this. And that part of the building of the muscle is kind of like knowing that it's not going to be perfect, right?

and laying that over it. And so I'm so grateful that you kind of pointed that out. And, you know, to the end, the distinction that you made between helping us kind of like live a better life and then also helping us solve a problem. I'm curious, you know, as somebody who has now ventured into the mindfulness space, how have you seen this kind of play out at a leadership level or from a business perspective? Yeah, I mean, look, I think that from a business perspective, we're all...

Again, living in this crazy world, we're in the midst of one of the biggest crises

technology transformations. I was here for Google for 10 years from early internet to mobile to social to video to cloud to machine learning. But this one feels like one of the biggest and most transformational. So I'm pretty sure that it's causing a lot of stress inside of Google. And it's causing stress in every company.

as well because everybody's trying to figure out like how do we get to the other side of this like are we going to win are we going to lose is somebody going to come in and disrupt us you know they're a bunch of startups in the in the mental health space um so everybody's wearing a lot of stress and um and and looking to like and and i think there's a lot of pressure to move fast

And so in that world, like, how do you have the best resilience? How do you come to work and have a clear mind?

and be able to interact well with your team and not reflect some of that energy, but actually channel that energy and be able to make the right choices and communicate well as a team and not have chaos reign just because it feels like that's what's happening on the outside. So that's what I think about a lot is just like if you can get your workforce to try to experiment with some of these things, it's just going to help

internally to get people in a better mind space when they're at work. And I think it's going to translate to better decisions, more productivity. It's like a superpower if you can actually master it.

What I heard you say that I think is so important there is that our job as leaders is to share our calm, not join the chaos. Yes. And to be able to do that, like this is a skill that you can use to help you achieve that goal as a leader. Jenna, I'm wondering if you can kind of weigh in in terms of what you've seen, maybe even clinically, how mindfulness helps our leaders. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think one of the things that's really important is a dysregulated leader can't help a dysregulated employee. And you could like plug in anything. Like a dysregulated parent can't help a dysregulated kid. And so what mindfulness does, and we talked about this, this idea of awareness is it helps us improve our emotion regulation skills so we can show up as a more grounded and stable person, both personally and professionally. And when I think about leaders, leaders have a big task. They're managing up, they're managing down, and their role is highly relational.

And so what mindfulness does is it helps leaders show up and be fully present for their teams and be attuned to their team's workloads and to their stress, which I think is really critical. Most people don't mind working hard, but it doesn't feel good to work hard if you don't feel like people have visibility to what you're doing and that your work doesn't have impact. And so mindfulness is really important for leaders to tune into that piece of it.

One of the things, and again, I don't know if you've ever been in a one-on-one with somebody and you're like, "They're there, but they're not there." That sucks. It's not a great feeling. It's not a good look for a leader. What I would say is the piece of content I use the most in the Headspace app is, it's called Five Breaths. You just open up the app. It's one of the first things. It takes one minute.

And research shows if you just do one or two minutes of mindful breathing after you've been working for 60 minutes on a complex task, it improves mental clarity. And so if I've had a busy day, I'm about to go meet with my team, I just do that reset so I can be fully present. And we've actually done a randomized control study where we grouped off leaders.

And some of those leaders practiced mindfulness. The others did not. And what we found is that those who practice mindfulness, their teams rated them as having more mindfulness traits. So it worked as being more authentic leaders. And then it proved out that like that made their team feel happier, like more positivity. And so this isn't something that I'm just saying like, hey, it feels good. And conceptually, it's nice. Like we have science, like a randomized control trial of leaders that show that this is

adds to really important traits that we know help lift up a team. And that's so important. I think people look for leaders to be calm in chaos, like you mentioned.

I left Google after 10 years to be a startup CEO, and I was talking to somebody about what's it like going into the startup world. And this person said, well, at Google, your ups and downs are kind of like this. But in a startup, your peaks and valleys are a lot more accentuated. Some days you feel like you're going to crush the world, and other days you feel like you're probably going to go out of business in two days.

And so in that world, how do you manage your energy? How do you be that presence that is, hey, we're just going to keep going, keep one step in front of the other? I think it's really important. The other analogy, I'll give you a military analogy. But you'll hear from the Navy SEALs that when the fighting gets crazy, they get calm.

And they do their best work by, in a world of chaos, actually turning inward, focusing on the team, and just tuning out the noise and doing their business. So I think, however you want to look at it, this idea of just being steady.

you know, in this chaotic world and the world seems to be only more chaotic as we go. - Did you? The world is definitely more chaotic as we go. I think we can all agree on that. I guess something you made me said, or that you said made me wonder, did you use mindfulness as a fighter pilot without knowing it was mindfulness?

It's funny because as a fighter pilot, they call it compartmentalization. Okay, yeah. And so when you get in an F-18, which is what I float, you do not want to be distracted. You want all of your energy focused on the task at hand and stuff's happening quickly and you just can't afford to be distracted. And so, yeah, we didn't call it that. We didn't have any particular techniques, but it was very clear as you entered that space

You had to kind of clear your mind and make sure you were focused on that. Yeah, absolutely. So I am wondering if you could tell a leader one thing about how to start and where to start with a mindful practice, what would that be?

For me, it was starting with sleep. But I think from just more of an everyday thing, there's actually...

There's actually a section on Headspace called Mental Strength Training. And it sort of hits on this idea that I said, this is for everybody. And it's just like, what's the version of going to the gym for your mind? And so it has very lightweight exercises, three to five minute things, a tactical pause. So it's just a nice little toolkit, easy to do. It's really interesting how

objectively when you say doing something for like three to five minutes, like it seems like we should all have time for three to five minutes, right? It's like smaller than our coffee break. And yet. And yet it's so difficult to do it. And it's so difficult to be alone with yourself and your mind, right? That is the hardest part. And so I think if you can calendar it, if you can just like literally just create that spot and force yourself to do it and start to build that habit,

It's a good thing to do. Yeah. So we have an entire collection. It's called Thrive as a Leader. You go into our collections tab, and it has some really awesome content in there. And so I'd say that's a really fun place to start. Look at what interests you. The second thing I would say, do something that builds it into the structure of your day for your team. So start your meeting with two minutes of mindfulness. That's good for you, and it's good for them.

And it's not an add-on, it's an add-in. And I think that's a really important thing as a leader because it signals, hey, I think this is important. B, let's take a moment and approach the meeting with intentionality. And now this isn't something extra I have to do. It's something that the environment is supporting us to do together. So those are kind of two of the tips I would say for leaders is like an entry point. Amazing. When we do our company all hands, we always start it with a three-minute meditation session.

And, you know, when everybody collectively pauses for three minutes and you come out of it, you're like, oh,

I'm like, here now. And you come out with this, like, you know, just, and again, it's just two or three minutes. And it can kind of just, like, you know, get rid of a lot of the stuff that was in your mind. Yeah, I love that. Oh, I'm here now. Like, if only we did that before every team meeting, right? Like, oh, I'm here now. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so speaking of three-minute mindfulness exercise, I think you have an exercise for us to share. Yes? Yes.

Yes. Okay. Yeah. And then we're going to take some questions. Just begin to settle in, letting go of everything else that may have followed you up until this moment. Sitting upright, eyes open or closed, jaw relaxed, shoulders soft, and just taking a few deep, gentle breaths in through the nose, filling the belly, and out through the mouth, emptying the body.

With each breath, inviting the body to a space of stillness and presence. And as you exhale now, returning the breath to its natural rhythm, noticing that sense of calm in the body, feeling the body pressing down into the surface beneath you, feeling the body relax and release, and connecting to the natural rhythm of the breath, noticing the sensation of the breath in the body,

And then just noticing any texture to the breath. So maybe it feels smooth, silky, soft. Or it could feel a bit rough. Just noticing and being with the breath as it is. And if the mind at any time begins to wander or gets distracted, that's okay. The practice here is coming back to the breath with ease. No force needed.

Just finding the sensation of the breath again and resting the awareness on this breath and then the next breath. Continuing to stay with the breath, finding its flow, finding its gentle rhythm in the body as the body rises and then falls, expands and contracts. Noticing when the mind has gotten distracted and then gently guiding it back to the breath. And when you're ready,

Taking a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. And then just gently opening your eyes. There you go. Wow. So I noticed that I wasn't breathing until we started doing this. I also noticed, I wonder if you guys have noticed, how the room feels is different now.

than it was right before we did this. There's less of this and shifty and things like that and everybody is a little bit more subtle. Do you guys feel it too? I don't know if you feel that in yourselves. Do you guys feel it? Yeah, okay. And three minutes, right? We often start meetings five minutes later, whatever. Three minutes is what it took to have that meaningful shift.

So I would love to shift to some questions. We've got some good ones here. So our first question is from Shane. It often feels like there is a catch-22 where the practices noted to improve mental health require the inhibited skills.

What do you say to the person with executive functioning challenges that continually finds themselves trying to start habitually developing mindfulness and failing to do so? Excellent question. That's a great question. I've got a couple of thoughts. So first of all, you're not failing on mindfulness. We bring nonjudgmental to us. You're just trying again and again. So there's no failing.

Secondly, I think there's, I have found for people who are looking or having a hard time with the skill sticking, thinking about some of the practices that don't require sitting still. So some of my favorite content in the app is we have mindful walking or mindful movement. So if you're somebody who's just starting or that sitting still is hard, that's me. I'm high on restlessness. People know I was drinking Red Bull before this. That's why we're laughing.

And so that mindful movement can be like a very nice door in. What Tom was mentioning I think is important too. So like the sleep content is a great way to bring in some aspects of mindfulness as you wind down. So we have sleep casts. They're really, really popular and they weave in aspects of mindfulness into your wind down into that like habit. So those are some of the things that I would say. Also like

mindfulness is about non-judgmentalness. So like hold it lightly. If it's not working, that's okay. There's so many other things you can do to care for your mental health. I know that's a shocking thing for me to say, to say like, look, if it's not working for you, it's okay. Like, but it's okay. Like work on journaling, work on, you know, getting some just movement in. But again, it can just be very small things that like for one minute, I'm going to notice all of the green things outside on a walk. So keep practicing and experimenting with something that works for you. But it's a great question.

Awesome. Yes. Hi, my name is Leah.

So I love your collaboration with Sesame Street. Yeah, me too. I have two books with this thing, like the monster meditation. And anyway, it's like one about food and one about sleeping and I'm obsessed with them. And I, you know, I do some of these practices with my kids as much as I can. And, but I'm curious, what is your vision for, you

you know, bringing that more for the younger crowd? You know, obviously you're doing that, but what else are you doing or do you want to do? Yeah. So, excuse me, I'm going to be a little more mindful. It's such a great question. My daughter, I have a five and a seven year old. My daughter loves the monster meditation with Elmo. So we, we think you can cultivate a mindfulness practice very early in life and that mental health should start early in life.

And so we also have a collaboration with Unicorn Island and teaches kids wonderful emotion regulation skills. And so like that's a great series that I would say is really, really important. And we often are looking at different collaborations. So how we can reach youth at a much younger age, but I'll let you. No, I think that's right on. We get a lot of feedback on, you know, I think from the

the parents in particular around, you know, how do I help get my child to bed and has a dual benefit of, you know, starting to introduce some of these concepts to kids at a young age. And it also just makes night a little bit less stressful for the adults. So I think this is definitely an area that we want to continue to try to build out, particularly from the parental lens. But check out Unicorn Island. You'll love it. And we also have a Mindful Parenting collection.

Because so much of what is good for our kids, it's great if they can practice, but what's better is if we can practice. And like I said, a dysregulated parent can't help but dysregulate a child. Number one predictor of kids' mental health is their parents' mental health. So that's really important. So I'd say look at that collection. Plus one to you for an island, we use that. So.

So at home, yeah. My kids love it. They request it. So it's awesome. OK. We have another question. What are the key trade-offs that you consider between delivering the most accurate teachings on meditation and mental health versus creating easily digestible content that encourages widespread app engagement and growth? Great question. Thanks, Ted, for that. Yeah.

So one of the things I would say is we have a philosophy and a foundation that what we do is evidence-based care in everything that we do. And so we want to have a background that we have research that shows that our approaches are things that work for people and that they're helpful and that we can make them very engaging. Like those two aren't mutually exclusive. And so I would say that is our foundation is that it needs to be evidence-based in terms of what we're doing. But there's a lot of different ways that we want to package that to make sure it is digestible and engaging.

Yeah, I think what Jenna said is right. In the end, we want to make sure that we're driving to outcomes and using techniques that we know will help drive to those outcomes. At the same time, I do think that a lot of people are not...

not necessarily drawn to a particular format. And there's an opportunity to try to get people in through some more bite-sized content. But at the same time, if we're just engaging for the sake of engaging, then that's not going to be a good outcome. And so I think you'll see us experimenting with how can we get people into the funnel. But the key is not just getting them into the funnel for the funnel's sake, but get them to actually move towards an end state improvement.

Awesome. Yes, over to you. Yeah. Hi, I'm Anya. I have a few thoughts. One, how do you think about, you know, groups of people that have very specialized needs? Like, for example, you know, like postpartum maternal care or perinatal maternal care. And

And a lot of those kinds of needs are best addressed in a group setting or like kind of maybe offline, but maybe even online setting. So I was wondering how you were thinking about that. And my second like meta observation is that, you know, devices and I feel like my phone and it's this constant battle because it is like, you know, the black hole of all things good.

especially at home, like when we're all tired and want to go to bed. And, you know, clearly like it's like dopamine addiction that, you know, kids, so kids kind of are getting attuned to. So how do you think about that? Like dialectical of like having kids

you know, wanting to get this to everybody, but also phones being the problem, you know, and dealing with that. I have so many thoughts about those questions. What great questions. And you used dialectical. It's just two opposites can be true at the same time. I love it.

Okay, so first, how do we think about specific populations? So we're often thinking about specific populations. Like we last year launched a fertility collection knowing that there's some really just important things specific. So what I would say is that research shows that when people are engaged in multiple forms of care, that's when the best outcomes happen.

And so we have this full spectrum of care of offering content, therapy, psychiatry. And one of the things is we work with people in terms of what is their individual needs. And so if somebody would need group therapy as an individual, we would recommend that. But we would also pair that with content so they have this collaborative experience. So I think we take a very personalized approach to what we're doing. And the idea is we want to make sure people get not only the right level of care, but the right mix of care. And so I think those are things that we are consistently thinking about. And how do we do that for different populations?

To your second question, I like to think about our screen intake like digital calories. And so just like regular calories, some of those are more meaningful than others.

And so one of the things I think is really helpful as a person, think about what does your digital calorie intake look like and how many of those are meaningful calories versus empty calories. We hope Headspace is very nourishing in terms of the digital calories that you are consuming, but we also don't think that you should be consuming Headspace all day long. That would be contraindicated for your mental health.

And so I think our position is it's okay to have some fun digital calories, but that shouldn't be your whole palette. And so we encourage people to be mindful about what does your consumption look like? How do you feel after you consume? And how do you get some more wholesome digital content and calories? And really, really great calories in terms of like content is stuff that actually you engage in. It's not passive content.

scrolling, but it's actively doing things. So things that help you create, connect with people. And that's what I love about the Headspace app. It's experiential. So it's the best kind of digital calories because it gets you to be doing something that's good for your well-being and has amazing physiological impact on your body.

Okay, so I think we have time for one more fast question. And it can be yours. Yeah. The last question, I guess, is what do you think of mindful eating?

Um, I think what I've seen a lot recently is parents who say, oh, my kids won't eat anything unless they're in front of a screen and I can just shove food in their mouth. And that makes me really scared. Um, and I just think even as adults, I see a lot of people not necessarily taking the time to understand what they're eating and to just like eat in front of a screen and just eat as fast as you can just to get calories inside your body.

Yeah, so I'm curious, what are your thoughts? I think mindful eating is incredibly important. So one of the best ways that we can take care of ourself physiologically is to develop intuitive eating. So to know and recognize, oh, I'm feeling hungry right now. And then I eat until I feel satiated. And when we're not doing mindful eating,

we put ourselves out of whack with our own physiological needs. So we want to be attuned to our body. So mindful eating is really helpful for that. And of course, like there's always going to be times where something happens and you have to get food quickly, but I do think it's a, it's a part of our every single day. And so the more that we can take time and just sit down, this is something I do every day. I actually always step away from my desk and eat lunch because that's such an important thing just for my own wellbeing to unplug. So I think mindful eating is really important. It's a great point.

Can we give a warm, warm, warm round of applause for our two guests?