Headspace Review: A Digital App for the Mind

PUBLISHED July 1st, 2015 02:29 am | UPDATED March 26th, 2019 06:10 pm

Years ago, when I was asked to meditate and do yoga to help with my insomnia, I brushed the notion aside as all I could visualise was hippies meditating in a circle and chanting away.

However, I was feeling very overwhelmed recently with moving cities and being apart from my close friends; I started drowning in the constant flow of thoughts in my head. I was up at random hours thinking about my life and eventually, I used those hours to clean the apartment – imagine doing laundry and mopping the floor at 4am just because you can’t sleep!

As you can probably tell, the insomnia took a turn for the worse, so I decided to seek therapy in different forms. On top of going to yoga classes, I went to a therapist, which is when I heard of Headspace, a digital health platform available as an app.

He suggested downloading Headspace and meditate with it daily to help with my insomnia, which sounded strange since it seemed so contradictory to the idea of meditation. But truth be told, I am a social media maniac who find it very hard to put my phone away at times; so using the same technology to help deal with the noise in my daily life couldn’t be more perfect.

Having watched Andy Puddicombe’s (former Buddhist monk and founder of Headspace) TED talk, I was inspired to download the app and get started on my meditation journey. As he says, “Headspace is a gym membership for the mind”, and  it takes just 10 minutes to start a daily ritual of meditation.

Since starting on my meditation journey with Headspace, I have learnt to stop my mind going in random directions. I’ve also learnt to stop and breathe, and be mindful of my emotions and inner voice. More importantly, I learnt to stop, smile, have positive thoughts, and at the same time, turn negatives to positives in baby steps.

Meditation is not a destination but a journey to help with self discovery. You become mindful and see the issues we have to deal with on a daily basis more clearly. We spend money making our superficial selves look good, but what’s the point if we neglect our mental state of health? In this era where technology threatens to overwhelm us on a daily basis, it’s good to take 10 and meditate into calmness that’ll enable us to deal with our stressful lives.

My insomnia hasn’t gone away completely, but it is getting better and I’m confident that by continuing with this daily ritual, I’ll be able to ease myself into proper, deep, and uninterrupted sleep!

So, what are you waiting for? Get yourself some Headspace now – it takes just 10 mins to get started.

Click here to download Headspace.

By Tara Mohamad