Headspace Wants You to Get in Touch With Your Body
*By Alyssa Caverley*
You might not think that your smartphone, with all its flashing message alerts and beeping reminders, would be the tool to help you slow down and get in touch with your thoughts.
But that's what the guided meditation app Headspace aims to do by giving its 28 million users a way to improve their health and happiness at any time of day. It was one of the top lifestyle and wellness apps in the first quarter of 2018.
"It is genuinely a coming together of a consumer need and something being offered in a very different way," said the Headspace co-founder Andy Puddicombe in an interview with Cheddar's CEO Jon Steinberg. "You have meditation that's been around for a few thousand years, so this isn't new."
Puddicombe, who trained for 10 years as a Tibetan Buddhist monk in Northern India, said that Headspace was designed to help make meditation accessible to people's modern daily lives.
"So most people think of meditation ー 'O.K. I've got to sit down on the floor, cross legged, light some incense' ー we've tried to kind of take it away from that to make you feel sort of grounded and down to earth," Puddicombe said. "So I encourage people to sit down on a comfortable chair and just focus their attention in the distance."
He said the point was to show people who download the app that meditation is an individual experience and anyone can do it. And it's Puddicombe's voice ー the voice of Headspace ー that will help guide you through it and maybe even lull you to sleep.
"Meditation gives you what you need and if, at that time, you need sleep and you feel amazing when you wake up, that's a win," he said.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/headspace-founder-on-why-meditation-app-clears-up-the-brain-fog-for-users).
Markets closed the day mixed, and well off their lows of the day following a market meltdown earlier in the session. The Nasdaq staged a comeback late in the day, even amid ongoing worries about the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. Doug Flynn, certified financial planner and co-founder of Flynn Zito Capito, joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss the markets' close and what's driving the major indexes.
Two companies recently announced a new partnership aimed at addressing the growing demand to borrow against crypto - digital assets capital markets firm CrossTower is partnering with commercial bank, BankProv. The companies are launching a crypto lending platform that will allow Bitcoin miners to receive loans to invest in crypto mining equipment. The companies say the program also addresses the difficulty of breaking into crypto mining due to the high cost. CrossTower research analyst Martin Gaspar joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Next-gen social sports platform Break the Love recently raised $2.5 million in seed funding. Break the Love's platform and iOS app allows users to discover and book group-based tennis activities, to either learn, train, or compete. The new company has already gotten support from a few big names in the world of tennis, including the coach of Naomi Osaka, as well as the United States Tennis Association and the brand Wilson. Break the Love founder and CEO Trisha Goyal joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
The world of NFTs and cannabis are colliding as luxury cannabis company Peakz gears up to launch a digital dispensary in the metaverse. CEO Jessie Grundy and Tiffany McBride, managing director of social equity ventures at The Parent Company, an investor in Peakz, joined Cheddar to break down exactly how a digital dispensary would work. Grundy also talked about offering low-cost NFT courses in an effort to help Oakland, California, residents not miss out on new investing opportunities, and McBride discussed why the tech-forward vision of Grundy was worth investing in for The Parent Company. "He comes with really fresh ideas that he's vetted, that he's experienced in, and I really believe the thinking along Jessie's lines is the future of cannabis," she said. "He's more than just flower and a story. He comes with concepts that are new that are innovative, and that is easy for us to get behind."
Daniel O'Brien, president and global head of enterprise at HTC America, joined Cheddar's "Closing Bell" to discuss new products and services the virtual reality brand showed off at CES 2022, including a wrist tracker — in lieu of controllers — for more accurate interactions connected to its all-in-one headset, the VIVE Focus 3. O'Brien also described a cloud-based, 5G content delivery system. "We partnered up with Lumen Technologies and from six miles away we delivered high bandwidth VR to a headset directly in the Wynn Hotel during CES," he said. "And people were able to walk around in their virtual experience through a wireless signal."
Samsung unveiled a slew of new electronics and upgraded designs at CES 2022. With a heavy focus on gaming and the future of work, the company showed off its all new Odyssey Ark, which boasts a massive 55 in. curved display designed to give users a more immersive and captivating experience. Sang Kim, SVP, Samsung Electronics joined Cheddar's Michelle Castillo to discuss the company's biggest launches as well as major trends to watch in 2022.
The UK's Information Commissioner's office is scrutinizing Facebook's parent company Meta over child safety practices linked to the Oculus headset, according to a report. The agency is looking to question the tech giant about how it's protecting children from harmful experiences in virtual reality.