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Headspace App making a positive workplace difference
By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>
THE GROWTH of stress and mental health issues has become a dominant trend since the Covid pandemic.
Indeed, the pandemic only brought forward a trend that was already happening.
Dana Udall, the chief clinical officer for the Headspace App, said mental health issues are now out in the open globally.
Covid just exacerbated the issue.
“We’ve seen things like increases in depression, anxiety, suicidality, substance use and eating disorders,” Ms Udall told Talking Business. 
“Mental health issues have really burgeoned and we’ve seen this across the globe. More and more people are needing support, more and more people are seeking services.
“We’re trying to reach folks early and provide them with skills to help them manage their mental health needs.”
App is working on mental health front lines
The Headspace App has positioned itself well to do that. It is the leading provider of meditation and mindfulness well-being solutions globally, with more than 100 million users. About 30 million of those come from Headspace for Work partnerships with more than 4,000 global enterprises.
The Headspace App continues to rank in the top 10 most downloaded health and fitness apps from both Apple and Android stores and has been downloaded over 70 million times with millions of monthly active users.
Some notable Aussie brands cultivating healthier employee initiatives via Headspace for Work include Movember, caresales.com, A2 Milk, Atlassian, University of Melbourne and Booking.com (just to name a few).
Ms Udall said while mental health issues arose during the pandemic, they continue even now that we out of the pandemic because it has “a long tail”.
Tele-health services weigh in
Ms Udall said more recently the big trend has been for people to seek help through tele-health services.
“We know in many parts of the globe there are just not enough mental health providers available, so people are more and more using their phones,” she said.
“We are on our phones all the time, whether it’s for banking or talking with loved ones or doing work – so what we’re seeing is more and more people wanting to access health care and mental health services through their phones.
“That’s some of the things the Headspace app offers, like mindfulness and meditation content, sleep-cast, movement, exercises or it might be actual services such as coaching or therapy.
“They can all be obtained through a cell phone.”
Workplace stress on a daily basis
Ms Udall said a Headspace App survey of CEOs and workers from around the globe had found that 89 percent of employees said they experienced “moderate to extreme stress” on a daily basis.
She said Generation Z was the group that felt this most acutely.
The key, she said, was to reach people early.
“One of the key things in the Headspace App that we are really focused on is prevention,” Ms Udall said.
“So teaching people lifelong skills like mindfulness and meditation – that they can use early on and over the course of their life, because we know that can help decrease the length of care if they need it – it can improve outcomes and can really improve their experience … because they can have skills (to draw on) so they don’t need as much help from professionals.”
Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness
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