Headspace is a global leader in introducing accessible meditations. Headspace’s motivation is to improve overall mindfulness, health, and happiness of the world. The services that Headspace provides have been scientifically proven to reduce stress and improve focus in people’s day-to-day lives. 

Headspace is currently working on a mission to improve the mental health of youth by helping youth develop healthy mental health habits starting from a younger age.

For our final design, we facilitated a 5-day social media challenge on Instagram that incentivizes youth to practice a mindfulness activity in their daily routine. Our final design closely aligns with Headspace’s desire to reach youth through social media and our overarching goal of taking a creative approach to motivating youth to incorporate mindfulness into everyday routines.

Our team received 42 followers on our Instagram account. Over the course of the five days, 21 of these people participated in at least one of our challenges and 14 people completed the entire challenge. 

While our solution might seem strange at first glance, the following points illustrates our rationale for pursuing such a solution

Through our interviews and co-design session, we found that youths used multiple social media platforms frequently throughout the day. This meant that we could introduce mindful practices conveniently.

10 out of 14 of our interviewees mentioned that how a strong social network was crucial in helping them maintain a healthy state of mind

Our project sponsors wanted to explore how the use of social media could help youths pick the habit of practicing mindfulness.