Episode 317: Headspace App
Looking for a tool to help you find peace amidst the chaos? Discover how the Headspace app can transform your daily life with its guided meditations and mindfulness exercises. In this episode, Fiona explores the app's features and shares personal experiences, highlighting its potential to reduce stress and enhance well-being. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
The Headspace app and its features
The evolution of the app to include movement and music
Various types of meditations and programs available
Personal experiences and benefits of using the app
Comparisons with other meditation apps and cost considerations
The importance of incorporating meditation into daily life
Recommendations for free guided meditations and resources
The value of regular meditation practice and finding what works for you
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Welcome to episode 315 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today are listening to a quick tip episode and that's where I share a tip, tool or tactic that you can implement immediately. Today it is a tool. It is a tool that I have used for years and when I reviewed the apps most used on my phone recently, this one came up at the top. Before I get stuck into that, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the beautiful land on which I record and live and play and work. And that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation and I paying my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.
As I said today I am sharing a tool that I use regularly and I have talked about this tool previously, but I haven't dedicated a episode to it. I thought, why not do it now? First, I have to say I am not sponsored by this app at all. I wish I was, to be honest, because it is a little on the prier side, but it's not something that I'm sponsored by. I'm not getting any kickback from this. It's just something that I use a lot. I think in business it's important to have something like this, even if it's not this particular app. What is the app? The app is the Headspace app. For anyone who doesn't know who that is or what that is, the Headspace app is a meditation app.
Although I have to say when I first started using the app, which was, maybe five years ago, I felt like it was all meditations and guided meditations over the years they have brought in, and more recently it, maybe I've just slowed to see that they brought this in, but they brought in movement. They have everything from one-minute movement classes through to whole programs where their movement is like 22 minutes or it's more like an actual workout video, not super strenuous because the whole point is to be mindful and calming and all of those things. But they also have music as well. They have music to help you focus and music to help with anxiety and all of that. And more recently, maybe they had these anyway as a meditation, but they've sectioned them out on the user experience in the app is more on sleep.
Getting back to sleep if you are waking up, getting ready for sleep if you have problems falling asleep, all of those kinds of things. But I have to say 98% of the way that I've used it is for the meditations and particularly the guided meditations. In these meditations, they have everything from just having a crappy day or big emotions through to anxiety, rehab, sports injury, dealing with resentment, anger, family issues, and mindful eating. They have all sorts of meditations. The way that I've used it a lot of the time is just they have these quick meditations or start your day meditations or end your daily meditations. I'll put that on. What I love about this is you can change the time. You can put a three-minute one or a 15-minute meditation.
You can also choose who the audio is coming from, and who's your teacher. They have about, I think four or five teachers that you can choose from. I tend to always go with Andy, he's one of the co-founders. I like his voice and because his voice was on the app for a long time, I've just used to it, but there are other teachers on there that you can choose and you can customize it for yourself. I have done a lot of their programs. When I was trying to get pregnant, I was doing one of the programs. I think it was about pregnancy or health. Then when I was pregnant with my second child four years ago, I did the pregnancy, I don't know if they called it pregnancy, but I'm pretty sure it was because I remember you had to visualize this tiny beam of sunlight in the baby and tiny beam of your heart and all this stuff.
I found that useful for helping with just general, not diagnosed anxiety. There's nothing wrong with that, I'm just saying from my perspective, it was low-level anxiety I had around being pregnant because I'd had a pregnancy loss beforehand. I did that course to try and just calm my thoughts about the baby and make sure that it stayed and all those things. But I've also used this when I've had to make tough decisions in my work. When I've had to let people go or about saying yes to an opportunity or maybe worrying about myself at work. I've used some of their anxiety playlists, and I've used some of the playlists around difficult conversations.
I've also used this for my personal life when I've had difficult conversations in there or situations. One of the best uses that I had for it so far has been when my back went out last year, I used their sports injury. It's like a 10-day meditation and I used it just repeatedly. I would do it for 10 days and then I might have a couple of days off, then do it again. I just found it helpful for taking my mind off the fact that everything was hurting and running ahead too, this is how it's always going to be. What if I can't ever drive again? What if I can't do this? What if I can't do that? And bringing me back to the present.
I remember in one particular case I had an important thing to do for work and it was about two months after my back had gone out and I'd thought that everything was getting better and it had all swung the other way. I had just taken my son to school and I was thinking that I'll be able to drive. The drive to my son's school is about five minutes. I took him to school and I was coming back to do my work and it just was excruciating, those five minutes of driving. I got back and I was just panicking about this is never going to get better. I was in a fixed mindset and I remember lying on the couch and forcing myself to do one of these meditations and I felt everything calm down.
The thing was I had to get onto Zoom like 10 minutes after that. If I hadn't done that meditation, I just don't think I would've shown up with the same energy I wanted in that particular case. Headspace is just one of many apps that are out there, but I find it one of the most useful. It is more expensive. There are a lot of them out there. I mean you can use Insight timer and find meditations for free from a lot of places, plus paid meditations. But this app is about over a hundred dollars a year. People might think, that's so expensive. However, if you were to go, I'm not saying it replaces psychology, but if you were going to see a therapist in Australia that can range from anything from $180 to $250 plus to see a psychologist for one hour.
If you think about the cost of that versus the cost of this, having it on tap whenever you need it on your phone. You can even do a three-minute meditation if you just need to calm down quickly or get out of your head and just get more present again quickly, you can do that. I just think that that cost is just part of my operations cost running a business because running a business, as you all know, is incredibly stressful at times. It's incredibly confronting. It will force you to get out of your comfort zone again and again and again. It doesn't suddenly stop doing that once you get 10 years in. Having something like this, I've found has been incredibly useful. I've used it many times in the middle of the day. I've used it before having to go into a masterclass.
Maybe I'm doing a masterclass on something I haven't done before. Maybe I am talking at an event. I had to do a lot of events from Zoom because Melbourne was in lockdown for so long and I was doing events in other states and even other countries and I was having to do them on Zoom and I remember doing one. I said, “How many people do you think are on that webinar?” I thought she would say about 150. She said I think we've got 900. Even if you've done lots of talks and even if you are in the comfort of your own home just doing a Zoom talk, it's still like, 900 people are listening to this. And just calming anything that's going on in your mind, we so often forget we have that choice too.
Just take a few deep breaths to calm down to get into the right headspace. But also even in my own coaching and Group Coaching, quite often I'll say, okay everyone, let's just take 30 seconds or 60 seconds, let go of whatever you've dealt with so that we can be fully present together for the next hour or so. And even that one-minute meditation can do wonders. But in terms of a tool that I use regularly for this, I use Headspace. As I said, I'm not being sponsored by this, I just think it's a great app. It is quite simple. They don't have hundreds of different meditations, but often I find that even doing the same meditation over and over can help. As I said, I like the guy's voice, Andy, but you might find a different teacher that you enjoy.
Even if you're like, I don't have a hundred dollars to spend on that, I would urge you to look for free guided meditations online. UCLA does quite a few. I think also if you're a student and you're listening to this Headspace have like a student discount. I would always just have a look at what is out there and have these in my toolkit for those moments when things are hard or you're just not feeling like you're in the right headspace of where you want to be for whatever it is that you're about to do in your job or your work and your business. Because just taking that minute or 10 minutes to listen to a meditation can do massive wonders for everything that's going on for you. It can just completely clear your mind and put you in a better mood.
I've done this previously when I've just been the kids have been frustrating me or whatever and I've said I just need 10 minutes. I'm going into my room, I'm going to lie down and do a 10-minute quick meditation or even a five-minute meditation. I've done this in the car, I'm in so many places and I just think that it is well worth the money. But as I said, if you don't feel like you've got that budget right now, then look for some free guided meditations and put those links into your notes app or put it somewhere else that's easy to access so you don't have to Google it all again. You can put them as bookmarks if you've got a desktop and just come back to them. Make it part of your practice that you're being proactive about caring for this stuff as opposed to only looking for that stuff when you're in the actual heat of the moment.
This is what's great about having Headspace because I have paid for it and I'm aware that I've paid for it. I try to utilize it at least once a week. If not more than that. Sometimes I'll be dedicated and do 10 days in a row. Other times it might be once a week for five minutes or even once a fortnight if things are busy. But I do find that when I do it regularly, it helps. That is it for today's quick tip episode. Just look at Headspace or any other app that is out there that is going to help you come back to the present, be intentional, and get out of your way sometimes and in as little as three minutes. As I said, I'm not sponsored by them. If you want to find out more about the Headspace app, you can just go to headspace.com and find it there.
You can also just look in the app store and download it. I think they probably do have some trial period so you could see about doing that. Only download the trial period if you have the time to do this because you don't want to download it and barely use it and then you've lost that opportunity. That is it from me. If you found this useful, I would love it if you could share it with a friend. Maybe they need to know about the Headspace app or something else like that that's going to help them at the moment. If you want to check out this in text format or look at the links, you can find that over at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/317. Thank you so much for reading.
