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This article was taken from the January 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
When former monk Andy Puddicombe announced his idea to teach mindfulness with an app, his Tibetan Buddhist teacher was horrified. "I felt very unsure as well," says Puddicombe, cofounder of LA-based Headspace. "In the Tibetan tradition, there's an unbroken oral lineage from teacher to student of almost 900 years. There's a risk in scaling something like this, taking it out of its environment, diluting it."
Puddicombe took the plunge and cofounded Headspace in 2010 with Rich Pierson, a former employee of creative agency BBH. The app's content ranges from ten-minute mindfulness sessions to advanced modules that tackle problems such as poor sleep and stress. The app has now been downloaded by more than a million iOS and Android users in 150 countries.
Independent scientific evidence validates the benefits of mindfulness to alleviate depression, aid cognition and strengthen cardiovascular health. There are currently 38 ongoing and planned academic studies with Headspace in conjunction with establishments such as University College London and Yale: in one study related to stress in the workplace, clinicians observed a significant reduction in participants' systolic blood pressure after eight weeks of using the app. "We have a clinical trial with St Bartholomew's looking at chronic pelvic pain," says David Cox, Headspace's chief medical officer and a lecturer at the Imperial College School of Medicine. "If successful, it could lead to the app being prescribed by NHS doctors for chronic pain."
Headspace was created by Bristol-born Puddicombe who previously worked with physicians in London. "I started to experiment to see what worked and what didn't," says Puddicombe. "Meditation is essentially a neurological skill with broad applications. We can wrap it around many different ideas and philosophies, but ultimately it's about being present."
This month, Headspace will start testing a version for kids in schools in Seattle, LA and Chicago. It is also developing tailored programmes for parents, pregnant women and athletes -- an Olympic team is using it in its preparation for 2016. And the app has come full circle: "There's a Tibetan monastery in Nepal," says Puddicombe. "Before they begin their training, they are told to do ten days of Headspace."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
