I was recently talking to the other Digipsych editors over a coffee at The Mindful Mug in Lincoln (blog post on that coming soon), and mentioned how I use Headspace for mindfulness practice. I was surprised to learn that not many of them knew about Headspace’s student plan. Headspace offers its premium app to anyone enrolled on a post-secondary program or university, aged 18+, for just £7.99 a year. That’s 85% off the usual £49.99 a year! The app has many great features, including guided meditation courses, sleep stories (my favourite) and short exercises you can use as and when needed.
Mindfulness is a really helpful skill to know as a student. When everything is moving so fast, mindfulness allows you a moment to switch off, to focus on one thing and tune out all the other noise for a moment.
The following questions and answers are taken from The Mental Health Foundation’s article titled ‘How to look after your mental health using mindfulness’. You can read the original article here.
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to the present moment, using techniques like meditation, breathing and yoga. It helps us become more aware of our thoughts and feelings so that, instead of being overwhelmed by them, we’re better able to manage them.
How can it help?
Mindfulness can be used as a tool to manage your well-being and mental health. Some people call mental health ‘emotional health’ or ‘well-being’. We all have times when we feel down, stressed or frightened; most of the time, those feelings pass, but sometimes they develop into a more serious problem, which could happen to any one of us.
It’s important to maintain your mental health, but being mentally healthy doesn’t just mean that you don’t have a mental health problem. With good mental health, you can:
- Make the most of your potential
- Cope with life
- Play a full part in your family, workplace, community and among friends
While research is still growing in the area of mindfulness, evidence has suggested the benefit of mindfulness to health and wellbeing, with results showing positive effects on several aspects of whole-person health, including the mind, the brain, the body, and behaviour, as well as a person’s relationships with others.
Mindfulness has also been shown to help with many conditions, including stress, anxiety, depression, addictive behaviours such as alcohol or substance misuse and gambling, and physical problems like hypertension, heart disease and chronic pain.
How does mindfulness work?
Evidence shows compelling support for Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which helps people cope with stress, and for Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), designed to help people with recurring depression. They provide flexible skills to manage your mental health and support your wellbeing.
Mindfulness might change the way you relate to experiences. It is becoming widely used in various ways and contexts and is recommended by NICE as a preventative practice for people who experience recurrent depression. Many people testify that practising mindfulness can give more insight into emotions, boost attention and concentration, and improve relationships.
Headspace
Headspace is a really good place to learn mindfulness. You can start with the course ‘Learning the Basics of Meditation’, or, if you are more experienced in mindfulness, you can go right in and explore their collections. It feels like the app has a meditation practice for almost anything!
The app also has a clean, calm and easy-to-navigate interface.
How to get 85% off Headspace as a student
From Headspace FAQs:
‘To get started with the Student plan, just follow the steps below:
Visit https://www.headspace.com/studentplan and log in with your current Headspace credentials, or create an account if you don’t have one yet. Follow the prompts to instantly verify your student status with a qualifying university, and continue to checkout.
You’ll get access to Headspace for £7.99 a year while you’re a verified college or university student. You’ll get an annual notification when we need to re-verify your student status through SheerID.
If your student status isn’t verified (e.g., you graduate), we’ll let you know via email and automatically enroll you in a 1-year alumni subscription at 40% off of the regularly priced Annual Membership at the end of your billing cycle.
When that 1-year alumni term ends, we’ll let you know via email, and automatically enroll you in the regularly priced annual Headspace subscription.’
(This blog post is not affiliated with or sponsored by Headspace in any way, I just really like the app!)