Dr David Cox from Headspace Speaking at Adobe Summit

Head­space, the med­i­ta­tion experts, are on a mis­sion. That mis­sion is to get as many peo­ple in the world to prac­tice med­i­ta­tion for 10 min­utes a day, to help us expe­ri­ence a health­i­er a hap­pi­er mind.

We caught up with Dr David Cox, chief med­ical offi­cer at Head­space to explain a lit­tle more about this mis­sion, how dig­i­tal mar­keters can embrace med­i­ta­tion and what he will be talk­ing about at Adobe Sum­mit in Lon­don, 14–15 May, when he takes to cen­ter stage.

How did you first dis­cov­er mindfulness?

I’d been inter­est­ed in med­i­ta­tion for years, but nev­er man­aged to find a style of learn­ing that worked for me. Head­space was fea­tured in a mag­a­zine arti­cle about mind­ful­ness, and I down­loaded the app. From the first ses­sion I knew I’d found some­thing I could incor­po­rate into my life. The excuse “I don’t have the time” didn’t apply!

https://blog.adobe.com/media_3d5260f63e22ac8254f203fdab407a4c773aa34f.gifAnd how might it help those work­ing in dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing specifically?

Mind­ful­ness is incred­i­ble in its broad applic­a­bil­i­ty. In essence it teach­es greater aware­ness, of your­self and of oth­ers. Huge ben­e­fits fol­low, both in terms of health — less stress, depres­sion, anx­i­ety, bad habits, and so on — and also in terms of rela­tion­ships and per­for­mance — greater focus, atten­tion, empa­thy, cre­ativ­i­ty. I find it hard to imag­ine how any­body in dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing wouldn’t find a ben­e­fit from more focus, empa­thy and creativity!

Do you see any sim­i­lar­i­ties between the dig­i­tal land­scape and mind­ful meditation?

Inter­est­ing­ly we’re start­ing to see an increas­ing num­ber of tech com­pa­nies (includ­ing Google) intro­duc­ing mind­ful­ness train­ing into the work­place. I think this is due to com­pa­nies becom­ing more aware of the need to look after the well­be­ing of their work­ers. The ben­e­fits of mind­ful­ness train­ing are embed­ded in sci­ence, with over 2000 stud­ies con­duct­ed to date.

What are you most look­ing for­ward to at Adobe Summit?

I’m real­ly look­ing for­ward to hear­ing the breadth of per­spec­tives from key inno­v­a­tive thinkers!

Can you give us a lit­tle teas­er into what you will be explor­ing in your Sum­mit talk?

Peo­ple have a lot of pre­con­cep­tions about what mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion is and what it entails. I’m hop­ing to show peo­ple how straight-for­ward mind­ful­ness is, and how by putting aside as lit­tle as 10 min­utes a day to prac­tise it can help you lead a health­i­er and hap­pi­er life.

To hear more from Dr Cox you still have time to reg­is­ter for Adobe Sum­mit. Plus, take part in the Adobe Sum­mit con­ver­sa­tion with ‪#Adobe­Sum­mit.