In the midst of conversations about mental wellbeing on campus and at a national level, Choate is taking initiative to provide more resources for the community. The School is introducing Headspace, an increasingly popular digital guided meditation platform, to the community.
Mr. Morgan Harris, Choate’s Academic Technologist, was a major force behind making the app available for students at no cost. At a wedding last summer, Mr. Harris stumbled upon a pleasant opportunity. At dinner, he found himself sitting next to co-founder and CEO of Headspace, Mr. Rich Pierson, who referred Mr. Harris to the educational outreach coordinator of the company. In the past, Headspace was used primarily by major corporations, but because of the success of these partnerships, Headspace reached out to teachers, to whom the company provided the app for free.
At the time of Mr. Harris’s conversation with Mr. Pierson, Headspace was strongly considering the possibility of providing students with the app. Headspace eventually decided to do so, and at no cost. Mr. Harris said, “I’ve been interested in mindfulness and meditation for a while now. I have tried to take a mindfulness-based approach in the classes I teach and think about how to bring this to Choate. We can now do it through this app!”
In recent years, the benefits of meditation have become increasingly apparent, and Headspace is a testament to that progress. Mr. Andy Puddicombe, another co-founder of Headspace, said in a TEDTalk, “On average, our minds are lost in thought almost 47 percent of the time… At the same time, this sort of constant mind-wandering is also a direct cause of unhappiness… To spend almost half of our life lost in thought and potentially quite unhappy…it just kind of seems tragic when there’s something we can do about it, when there’s a positive, practical, achievable, scientifically proven technique which allows our mind to be more healthy, to be more mindful and less distracted.”
The application is designed to provide an individual with a selection of secular meditation sessions. The full version of the application, which is available to the Choate community, allows the user to test out general meditation sessions to become acclimated to the process. After exploring the general meditation sessions, the user may select sessions from more specific and personal categories, depending on what he or she would like to practice. Some of the categories that Headspaces offers help with managing, stress, competition, and workload.
Meditation has been proven to make individuals happier, more mentally stable, and less overwhelmed daily.
Mr. Harris also believes that Headspace has advantages even beyond those that are obvious. He said, “It helps inspire positive change from the inside out. People can confront, in a non-threatening way, the ways they are willing to change themselves. That might have a ripple effect out into the broader community. Although [meditation] is a solitary pursuit, by being connected with yourself you are actually able to connect with others at a fuller and deeper level.”
Overall, in a busy community, where stress is common, Mr. Harris hopes that Headspace will help individuals cope with that stress and be less overwhelmed.
Headspace is available to all students and faculty. Anyone wishing to download the app at no cost may contact Mr. Harris. There is additional information on the portal as well.
