Looking back at Murphy Research's State of our Health tracking data from 2019 to early 2026, Chuck figured the spike in weekly mindfulness practice was just a temporary COVID bump. But the numbers kept climbing, from 38% in 2019 to 50% in 2026, and most of that growth actually happened after the pandemic stress began to settle. Maggie wasn't shocked at all. To her, the upward slope makes total sense when you look at what people are dealing with every day: endless screen notifications, workplace pressure, and a constant flood of digital noise. As they dig into the story behind the charts, the discussion moves past basic app downloads. They talk about how Headspace and Calm lowered the barrier to entry years ago, how employers quietly turned mindfulness into a standard benefit, and why people are turning to simple, grounding habits to balance out an over-digitized world.
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Chuck Murphy 0:00
Hi everyone, I'm Chuck Murphy. This is Key Takeaways. Today, Maggie and I are going to be discussing mindfulness. A recent state of our health report that we published had some interesting data, and we've been talking about it internally. So we thought we'd do a podcast and share some of our thoughts with you. We think there's some really interesting trends going on. Hope you enjoy. All right, we are ready and raring to go here today. We are going to talk about mindfulness and a fact that I found a little bit shocking, but Maggie thought was very pedestrian. wasn't surprised by at all.
Maggie Bright 0:42
Pedestrian. I just said it was to be expected.
Chuck Murphy 0:45
You were wise. You were wise to the mindfulness growth in a way. I thought
Maggie Bright 0:49
I told me it was going to happen.
Chuck Murphy 0:51
So I'll tell you the backstory of this. And we were we were this was this actually came up like a month or two ago in the near the end of Q1, when our state of the health team was working on a mindfulness kind of deep dive report that got published like a month or two ago, and there's a chart in there that shows mindfulness growth by year, basically, and and from 2019 to to 2026, mindfulness has gone from 38 on a weekly basis up to 50% which to me struck me as like a really sharp increase for a behavior that you know there's nothing really new about it. It's been around forever, right? And it's it's you know a fairly basic part of our our kind of day to day lives. So I just I just thought that was really shocking. I was like, that's a that's a really sharp increase, and it wasn't all a COVID bump. In fact, most of that growth has come post COVID, which I think is really interesting. So that's where we kind of started this discussion, and we've we've had multiple over the last couple months. I've I've brought this up multiple times, and we've talked about it with different people in terms of why do you think that is? What do you think is happening? So we thought we'd do a little podcast on that and kind of go through our different thoughts and feelings and hypotheses about this and see, you know, just see if you know we can land anything that is close to consensus. But maybe we should start with the fact that you were not surprised by this in the way I was.
Maggie Bright 2:23
I was. I mean, I think that it's always interesting to see a upward trend like this, that like consistent growth. So I think it's. I think it's fascinating. But when I reflected on, okay, why could that be happening? I think this this trend fits with a lot of the things that we're seeing in traditional media that we're hearing about in you know even in exercise based apps or that we're that people are talking about. So I think the the way that we define mindfulness in this survey is it's pretty broad. So it's essentially it's any sort of gratitude ritual, any kind of self-reflection or journaling, meditation and prayer, mindful movement, or app-based exercises. So that would be like Headspace or something like that. So a meditation app would be counted in that. And to me, I think that if you think about the things that we're hearing consistently, whether it be around, hey, you need to spend more time sleeping, recovering. You know, so there's like a whole a whole industry building around this idea of recovering and taking time and space. There's also this sort of fever of information coming at us all the time, and I think a lot of consumers want to find quiet stillness and space, and then the third piece of this is I think we've seen that consumers are like people, not even consumers, are looking for sort of like community, and that's why we're seeing in some cases a return to things like church or a spiritual practice that may have waned a bit in the in the past decade or so. So I think like a combination of all those factors to me it makes sense that more people would be engaging in this in these types of practices on a more frequent basis. But yeah, I would love to know why you think it's so surprising or sort of you know not what you're expecting.
Chuck Murphy 4:19
Well, it's funny. So whenever there's something like this, like I like to noodle it for a while, and then I feel like I have to have to come up with with kind of like a three part story. I think after after noodling on this for a little bit, I think it does appear. You know, by the way, before we go, before we go into that, let me let me go backwards and just throw a few facts out of people that I just thought were interesting, and we could also, you know, we we could we have this data. It's it's a you know mindfulness has always been a part of state of our health, which you know we've been doing for what do we decide eight years now? I think since 2017 So so we have I think
Maggie Bright 4:58
2018 was. Inaugural 2018
Chuck Murphy 5:01
yes you know well more than 100,000 completed you know surveys on this now we have men and women of all age groups across a number of years so we can kind of track this data really interesting and just a few facts on this this mindfulness growth so it's it's gone up by a third in in the past six years, which again, to me, that's a really really big increase, and there are there is a lot of stories and ink spilled about this, but I think I just kind of wanted to dive a little deeper. But that that increase of a third, it's it's fairly like there's a slightly different trend line for men and women. And you know, back in 2019, women practiced it more than men by about 10, and and now that that gap persists, right? But but but both of them have gone up over those years. The generation trend lines are slightly different. The younger generations sparked really quickly during COVID, especially millennials. Like I think that for whatever, whatever. Obviously, COVID caused a particularly anxious shoot there, or or maybe you have another theory on that, like they were targeted. No,
Maggie Bright 6:12
I think that makes sense. I I also think that there was more, you know, I think that the the COVID impact explains a lot of the the millennial growth in mindfulness, but it's sustained. I think that's what's interesting about it. It became like a very, it wasn't just something that was done to combat, you know, the anxiety associated with COVID. The millennials have really stuck with it as a as a trend for the most.
Chuck Murphy 6:36
Yeah, yeah, no, they have, and and and they are, you know, the millennials and Gen Z are are the highest endorsers of that practice. Some of that might be a language thing, but but but I think a lot of it it does kind of make sense. The boomers were the lowest through every year, but they have also grown all the generations. Gen X were a little bit later adopters than Jesse and they're they're catching right out there, and so I just thought that was like kind of a fascinating trend. But anyhow, back to like in terms of me, like this is what I'm kind of settling on as like a high level story for the the t here is three phases of this that I see. The first phase, I think we have to give Common Headspace a lot of credit, right? These early apps that were out there talking to, especially younger people, saying, "Hey, this is this is important that you kind of are more intentional about certain parts of your day. And and it's funny because I do think it's interesting to tease these different dynamics out, but but obviously when you say mindfulness, you know, if you're talking about something like prayer, meditation, you know, the the spiritual side of of yoga, you know, the Buddhist monks, whatever, it's been around for 1000s of years, right? Like we've had these things forever. But in a lot of ways, the term mindfulness and the way that we currently think about it, to me, does kind of come back to the launch of those apps and the fanfare they got. I thought I thought they were funny when they first launched, and you know we we I remember you know I met with the the founders of Headspace you know years ago like this must have been like 2014 or 15 or something, and we we talked to them and it struck me as in I was, you know, it didn't seem like something that would become that big to me. It seems, but I think you deserve a lot of credit in kind of starting to tell that story early. Yeah,
Maggie Bright 8:29
and I mean, I do think that meditation is a really daunting practice if you don't know what you're doing to to sit still and to like calm your mind in our current society is hard, and so to have a way that that sort of explains, and if you look at some of the early stuff that Headspace did, like the tutorials they had in the app and things like that, it was really smart. I mean, it was well done and it was simple, right? So it took this thing that was hard and complicated and made it very digestible. And I mean, you know, there were five minute. I think there were even like one minute meditations. I mean, it was very bite-sized and approachable, and I also think they did a. They were really smart about how they integrated it into different parts of of lives. I mean, they they they. I believe that for many, you know, during COVID, there were times when it was entirely free. You could get on there and you could use the app without any cost at all to sort of you know get you started on it. I think they've worked hard with businesses to figure out ways to you know help corporations offer it for free. They did a lot of cross promotions. I remember I was doing like a Nike run through their app, and there was like a cross promotion with the Headspace guy, and it was like a meditative run. So I think like they were really smart about how they rolled it out too, but the the key being they made something hard very accessible to the everyday person who had no idea where to start. And I would also say I think, and this is kind of part of the the other platform that's done this, and there are a bunch of them that do it, but like they've they've become platforms like that for therapy. Right, where it's much easier to find a therapist to meet with a therapist to do it virtually. So, like that's become much more accessible than it would have been, you know, 1015, years ago. And I do think part of that was because the regulations during COVID allowed practitioners to work with people online or across state lines. Like, it became sort of easier to practice that type of thing, which made the platforms more accessible to more people. So I think I agree with you. Like I give like Headspace a lot of credit for sort of figuring out how to actually make this something that consumers could interact with in a very easy way.
Chuck Murphy 10:35
Yeah.
Maggie Bright 10:35
So went on a tangent there, but
Chuck Murphy 10:39
one of the things I think about this interesting. So in the in the '90s, back when I was very young, I worked for this. It was an AIDS response program in San Diego, and you know at that time it was basically a death sentence. And one of the things that they had that we had to do, so I was clinical psych, is we would get approached by all of these spiritual providers, right? Which was, you know, and but but they made us as therapists do each of these things with these different providers before the provider could be introduced to any clients, and and they did that because they were skeptical of them, right? Like if you think about it, it's really interesting, and I remember at the time being very skeptical of a lot of this stuff, and and there was all different versions of this. There was like energy healers. There's pure meditation. There was all different versions of, of of kind of spiritual slash. But I think that that you know they were viewed with a lot of skepticism, and I remember doing and doing a lot of this stuff and and actually being very surprised by how well it worked, like I was like, wow, that's really interesting. Like I never would have thought it worked, you know. But then you fast forward 20 years, and I think therapy is kind of as in a separate bucket. Yeah,
Maggie Bright 11:53
agreed.
Chuck Murphy 11:53
But but I think you get something like common headspace, and they did mainstream, you know, some of this stuff, and and started talking about it in a very natural, easy, accessible way. I think they they sort of you know anyhow. Not to not to talk too much about that, but that if chapter one is that the launch of these apps, chapter two is clearly COVID, right? We know we know that COVID had a massive impact on all of this, and it's the COVID part. I think is is always hard to tease out because I sometimes think with a lot of people they they explain like when when you talk about say the rise in anxiety, right? A lot of people explain it in their or they really believe that it's it's an effect of COVID when really I I think it's an effect of smartphones right the smart the the screens are really the thing that happened the COVID period just was was this like super intense short lived like you can always point back to that as like oh anxiety went way up during COVID is like no, I think anxiety was building the whole time. COVID was was a separate stressor, right? Like, but but it's really the screens and the always on and the I can't get away, you know, from whether it's work or you know always reachable all the time. You know that thing buzzing the notifications. It is. It's not a natural way to live, right? I
Maggie Bright 13:21
totally agree with that, and I would I would sort of add to that. COVID gave us this space where we were kind of stuck in our homes, and so there was time to experiment with new ways to either deal with this or try new things. I mean, I think about how many hobbies I started during COVID. Some of them more crazy than others, but like I think if you were at home and you were anxious and you were like, "Hey, there's this thing I can do, you know, this mindfulness trick that I can try, you had this sort of space and time to try it during Covid, and so I wonder if it was sort of like the stress was building and Covid gave us in some strange way the space to experiment with with some of these mindfulness activities.
Chuck Murphy 14:03
I mean, another way to say a very similar thing to what you're trying to say is, COVID was like our rock bottom with screens. It was like this doesn't work. I'm not happy. Like a lot of people, and you you would hear a lot of parents talk about that during the period, like Zoom school. Parents would be like Zoom school, right? And there's there's still people that are just so mad about that, and I do think in a lot of ways that was like our little bit of there. There's this promise. There's always this promise in technology that it's going to bring this utopia, and you're going to be able to. You could talk to anyone wherever you want. It's it's all great, right? And true in in some ways, but there's also this. I think there was this kind of, for a lot of people, there was this realization of like, nope, this doesn't work for me. Like, I need people. I need to be outside. I need whatever they need. So, COVID was like their rock bottom in this, and I clearly think that you know, especially as we said, there is a generational story here. For a lot of people, COVID was the, I you know, the point where they needed. Antidote to the over technology, overinduced of technology, and mindfulness kind of really spiked from there.
Maggie Bright 15:10
Yeah, I think I mean it was a time of uncertainty as well, and in times of uncertainty, I think you look for anchoring behaviors that help you process that information, and a lot, you know, beyond just beyond just sort of meditation, but like the self reflection and journaling and the gratitude pieces of that, I think work really well in times of of extreme anxiety, where you're like, I'm going to focus on things that I can be thankful for, or I'm going to you know use writing as a way of processing the things that I can't quite understand in the moment, and so I think a lot of those probably, you know, grew during that time frame as well, beyond just the meditation piece of the puzzle. And you know, I also think that there's a lot of, I mean, there is research around if you are practicing gratitude, you does lead to more happiness in your daily life, and I can't cite any of those like any of that research off the top of my head. But there are, you know, it's sort of proven that if you are someone who has a daily gratitude practice, you are generally would report to be happier than your the rest of your cohort. Now, again, you could say there's a chicken and egg effect there, or causation correlation, but I think that there is like a lot of there are actual stories about that in you know probably on social media as well as in traditional media. So there's a you know there is support for a lot of these behaviors actually making your life more meaningful or better to some extent.
Chuck Murphy 16:39
Well, the the crazy thing about some of this stuff that's that's really interesting to me is like like journaling is a great example. Like psychologists have known for 100 years that it's actually one of the best things for your mentality. Psychologists have done that for a long time. Like there is something you know if you go back to Freud called it catharsis, right? But it's like a connection of of you know thoughts to feelings that does seem to have a relief for for anxiety, depression. I
Maggie Bright 17:06
think even journaling, like journaling, is a difficult thing to say. It's difficult to start journaling, right? It's not something that that is a you know you're just like I'm going to journal, you know, if you've never done it before. But what I mean, I am an I you know not to toot my own horn, but I'm an avid journal, have been my whole life, and I like a plain piece of paper in a notebook to journal. But what I've noticed is that there are now so many different types of journal that, like journals that will break down the steps, or there's the you know the two minute journal or a journal where you literally check boxes and things like that, as opposed to having to write a free flowing narrative. So I think even the even journaling has become something that has been made more approachable for people who are trying to start the practice of it. Now I don't know if that process is as effective as just you know writing down your thoughts, but I do I do think that so many of these things have easier ways in than they might have 10 years ago. Which maybe another reason why we're seeing the the rise is because it's just so much easier to get involved in one of these activities than it was before.
Chuck Murphy 18:08
Well, yeah, it's funny. Like you go from like I mentioned Freud, right? Like this this like open ended kind of analytic view of the world to then like CBT, which is like closer to where like you know a lot of the current thought is, but it's more structured, right? So it's like here's here's a structured thing to follow as opposed to this unstructured time with yourself, and you know maybe this is a good time to say like the third. I think the third big piece of this story is I'm trying to think what the word for this is, but but I was kind of astounded. I was you know obviously we've been I've been thinking about this for like a couple months, we've been talking about this for a little while, and I've kind of, you know, looked at different aspects of it. But you know, this has become like a big structured business, basically in a lot of ways. And you know, mindfulness-it's a $2 billion market now, and and there's some reports that think it'll be 7 billion by 2030. And one one stat that I found that I thought was fascinating, and again, you you always have to. There's all these different reports out there, and you have some people have a an angle. But I found this study by this this organization never heard of, but they said 59 of new mindfulness adoption comes from structured corporate wellness programs, and that 4,500 companies in the U.S. signed mindfulness program contract last year, which I thought was really fascinating. Like it, it, it. I don't necessarily think that's untrue because it's a it's a good benefit that is cost effective, right? So, so it's not that's not a super expensive contract for a benefit manager. Yeah, so we know that they like to have a lot of benefits, and if if something, but but there is this element as it's become a business. There's also a lot more evidence behind it, right? There's some of that is because it's becoming a bigger business. Some of it is just naturally like people have gotten better about structuring programs and then and then studying. Right, you know, there was this the study in the Lancet that showed that a CBT based mindfulness, so a more structured mindfulness version that was specifically targeting direct depression, was just as effective as antidepressants in preventing relapses as as medication. So it's like you you're getting more and more evidence, which makes it easier for for bigger programs to adopt, and it you know it just grows, and so it would be. I think that's a big part of this. Like what I would say, the third chapter is like it's it's it's kind of emerging as a legit, you know, industry. It's not it's not viewed as niche.
Maggie Bright 20:40
Yeah, it's fascinating. I mean, we're we're so skeptical about so many things, but it's amazing to me that there is some there is less skepticism here in terms of all the different ways that you can be mindful and the potential health impact that they could that they can have. I mean, I think you know. I was thinking about where I see sort of mindfulness show up in my daily life, and I was doing a Peloton workout the other day. And at the end of it, you know, one of the instructors talks about gratitude, and I was like, "Oh, that's you know, that's fascinating. And she's been talking about it for a long time, but I'm like, it's it's sort of showing up in all these different places now, where it might not have shown up before. So I feel like the sort of nomenclature of it is everywhere, and so people are more like, "Yeah, of course we should be meditating, or we should be journaling, or we should be in nature. And I think that there's also this there's there's this strange, and I'm not going to articulate this well, but there's this strange pull between the in, and I think this kind of goes back to your screen. You know, too much screen time or the smartphone piece of it. There's we're getting bombarded with so much AI and kind of like the you know trying to figure out what's real and what's not real. But the idea that you can like sit in nature and you know, sort of reset yourself, or kind of have this like return to normalcy. I think is really appealing for a lot of people right now. So it's sort of like the antidote to all of the artificiality that's coming at us. You can be like, oh, I can take a minute and like stare at a tree, and that becomes like my way to balance the rest of my day, so I actually think that it will continue. Like, if we had to like predict the slope of this line, I, I mean, it probably won't continue rising as quickly as it has since 2019. But I think it's going to keep going up, and I think that the things that we consider to be mindful will also expand. Like, I think that there will be some like new, or maybe like we'll bring in more things from 1000 years ago that kind of complete the portfolio of mindfulness behaviors and activities. So I think the business is going to keep growing. It makes sense. I mean, 2 billion to 7 billion in what four years seems like a really crazy growth. But like I don't know. I mean, like it's not impossible, right?
Chuck Murphy 23:04
No, and it's funny with the business growth. I think is this they've they've got better at packaging and selling it, right? Like, and we talk about like the actual practice of mindfulness for us, like for for if we're talking to individual people, the you know prayer is still the top one, breathing exercises. So so you're you, but the the business stuff I think is a little bit more. It's not. It's not that growth is more about them being able to package and sell it. But do you think it's interesting? Like that's one of the things I found fascinating about this chart when you first looked at it. Is like, for most people, right? Like like if you basically if you take out like female millennials, for most people this has been a steady slope, a steady march upward. So I was wondering, like, okay, so like right now, for example, like your your females were 47% in 23 50% in 2452 and 25 They're already at 50-three after q1 of 20-six. We going to get that number to 60 in the next four or five years? I think these. I think continue.
Maggie Bright 24:08
I mean, I think I don't think it's never going to be 100% right? There's a point at which it'll it'll.
Chuck Murphy 24:12
Well, or is there a point where there's a little rebellion against it? Like I'm over this, and they they you kind of you see a sudden. I
Maggie Bright 24:18
don't think so. I mean, these are very like. I don't know that you can say there's a downside to some of these, right? So I, I don't think there's, I don't think it'll ever. I mean, it'll probably plat. If I had to guess, it'll plateau out at like two thirds of the population does some kind of mindfulness activity. So there's still room to grow, you know.
Chuck Murphy 24:39
So in three years, we're gonna we're going to come back and see. We've seen that dip. You know what I always think of whenever we tell. I do think there's. It's funny because there's different angles of this too. I mean, I think we could talk about religion. I think is interesting. But the other thing that I think about all the time is just putty on Seinfeld. You know, just sitting on the plane and staring forward, and they're like, "You don't have a book. You're just going to sit here. You know. And there's there's now. Influencers that do that. I don't know how much you've seen this, but there's there's this little movement on on some of these you know social media folks to like you know fly without a device or books or anything or or to like I love
Maggie Bright 25:12
that they're still telling you they're doing it, which sort of negates the purpose of doing it. But
Chuck Murphy 25:15
well, I know, and it's funny because you know it started. I feel like this started a couple years ago with the whole flight thing, you know. And I they have like you know, I'm not going to say the words they have for it on the on the podcast, but it's funny because both both all the social media trends for this tend to have like ridiculous terms attached to them. But it does it when you pair it with actual day like this, there is something there, right? Like these these aren't just dumb. The influencers are picking up on something, you know, but the the ones that sit out on the on the porch and just stare, and I think that there's something to that that
Speaker 1 25:45
is yeah
Chuck Murphy 25:46
really interesting.
Maggie Bright 25:47
I mean, your mind needs a break where you're just inundated with stuff all day long, right? So it's like it's like a mental pause for your. I mean, I think there's there's parts of it that are much more spiritually connected than that, but like at its base level, it's a way to be like, oh my gosh, I'm overwhelmed by what's happening in my life, I need a pause, and I think we're going to see that more and more.
Chuck Murphy 26:05
So let's talk about that part because I think this-I think this part is another interesting little thread that you can pull on this. When when when I first saw this chart, and I first pushed the team like, "What's driving this? Why is this? Why does this continue to go? Uh oh,
Maggie Bright 26:19
time to be done. I'm just kidding. Your
Chuck Murphy 26:21
laundry done. Actually, it's
Maggie Bright 26:22
time for me to meditate. I'm kidding.
Chuck Murphy 26:24
No,
Maggie Bright 26:24
I'm totally kidding.
Chuck Murphy 26:26
But when I first pushed the team, like, what's driving this? What's driving this? The answer I got was religion, and prayer is the number one mindfulness exercise. But the thing that's interesting to me about that is if you look for other data points on religion, it's very hard to make the case that religion is growing. Most data points suggest that religion is shrinking. Yeah. Now, it could be a language thing that people are more likely to pray and then call it mindfulness, but say they're not religious, right? So you you have that whole quagmire. It it could be that the nature, but do you like how much of this do you think is religion? Do you buy that? I
Maggie Bright 27:04
don't. I so if in our own data, I think the the the religious piece of this often skews a little older, right? So it's more likely to be the older end of our of the data collection pool, and so like it's a little bit more structured for boomers and potentially older Gen X. I, having said that, I do think that there's, you know, prayer doesn't have to happen in a only in a very structured religious format. I think you're right about that. Like a lot of you can pray without going to church services, or you know you don't have to be with a pastor or minister or those types of things. So I think there's probably some of it is like less structured prayer and that drives some of it. But there's also I I think that yes that's a piece of it, but I think all the other things are kind of catching up to that too. I think it's just the big. I think that people are finding what works for them and that's driving up the total number of mindfulness. Now, I mean, I've heard anecdotally that people are looking more for community right now. That there's a desire for sort of group gatherings, and religion is a is a great way to do that in some respects. So maybe that's part of it. But I think it's I don't I mean yes, in our data set, prayer is the number one thing that people do as a mindfulness exercise, but there's also a lot of people doing other things too. I mean, breathing exercises is only, you know, eventually 11 percentage points behind prayer in terms of, you know, what what people are doing for meditation, and you know, they're they're not mutually exclusive. My my guess is, and I actually should have this number, but don't. Is that someone who does mindful behaviors probably does more than one mindful behavior because it becomes sort of a way of, you know, it becomes habitual or like sort of a lifestyle choice at some point. So my guess is that there's high overlap across some of these behaviors. Yeah, I'm not sure I actually answered your question, but sort of the the the short answer to that is yes. I think prayer is a big piece of it. I don't think it's the whole story, and I don't think it's the only thing driving these. Doesn't
Chuck Murphy 29:07
seem to me. It's funny. We actually like there. There. There. We can delve deeper into this, but I. But I think it doesn't seem to be the growth to me. The prayer seems to be. You know, 39% of people who who are mindful say they they've been that way for more than five years. So so there's there's obviously a group of people that have have not changed as much in the last five years. I would guess that it's some of the other things like structured breathing and and some of the stuff like that goes back to what the apps provided, what the wellness programs encourage. And
Maggie Bright 29:37
I think another question we have in our mindfulness battery is sort of like, why are you doing this? Like, what's your motivation behind mindfulness? And the number one thing, and 69% of people say that it's it's a mental health or a stress related reason that's driving their desire to be mindful. And spirituality is at sort of the bottom of that list of motivators for why you become mindful. So I think you know. I I think that there is a a broader belief that mindfulness behaviors serve your health and your stress management than there used to be, and therefore more people are engaging in these practices. Yeah,
Chuck Murphy 30:12
and there's no question about that. You can find evidence, and you know, like the neuroplasticity thing is a good thing. You mentioned it before. Like we now understand. It's it's funny to me because a lot of this stuff, like when I was training as a clinician, like like older like clinicians would tell you this stuff, but it was it didn't, you know. I think a lot of people were skeptical of it, but it's like, you know, they they used to have that joke about you know smiling can make you just as happy as happy can make you smile. Like you know you could you could look at this stuff both ways, and and and if you do, kind of focus on some of these things, you can change your brain, and you can. There's a lot of evidence now, and there's also a lot more adoption of like things that we would have called holistic or or Eastern like 2030 years ago. Like it's a lot of those are much more mainstream than they were. Even if
Maggie Bright 30:57
you think about what insurance covers now, I mean, like insurance regularly covers acupuncture services, which I don't think it did 10 years ago. But I would think of that as part of sort of like holistic health mindfulness connection. So absolutely,
Chuck Murphy 31:10
yeah, it is really interesting.
Maggie Bright 31:14
So if we if we come back in six years from now, do you think where do you think that number will be? I gave you my guess. I think it's going to top out around like two thirds of the population engages in mindfulness. Do you think it's going to be higher or lower than that in six years? Five? Well, five years. That sounds better.
Chuck Murphy 31:33
I, yeah, I think I do think it's going to. I think it's going to go a little bit higher. I think it's a fascinating trend because I think that you know we're we're kind of you know in the middle of this like arms race right now to to grow AI and grow this this this technological like coat that's all around everybody now and that is gonna that stuff is gonna be even more and more compelling right like we think about how compelling a smartphone screen is, like you know, the next three to five years as we start to see what they do with AI and some. Like I think this stuff is going to, it's it's a you know there's there's powerful forces trying to suck you into those screens. But I do so so I think there'll be this this kind of push to to fight that a little bit, but I also can see an AI version of of these meditation apps that's really cool. You know what I mean?
Maggie Bright 32:29
In in a I I'm going to call it scary. Others might call it something else, but I mean I think a lot of people use ChatGPT as a therapist now or as a sort of spiritual guide, which to to me is is is scary. But I, you know, if it gives you the help you need, maybe that's great. So I don't want to pass any judgment on it. But like I do, I think we're already sort of using some of these AI or generative tools as a mindfulness, you know, a way to to be mindful. And I don't know if that's contradictory or therefore, is not mindful. But yeah, absolutely. I I also think the opposite of that may become true, where you look to you need a touchstone back to reality or to be grounded, and so you use mindfulness as a way to get a you know really escape all of those the technology based things that are coming at us. So I think it could be sort of as you get overwhelmed by technology, you you need mindfulness to stay sane to some extent, and therefore it'll grow from that perspective too.
Chuck Murphy 33:35
Yeah, yeah,
Maggie Bright 33:35
that's my approach. I'm like, oh, I need some reality. I'm going to go stare at a tree. I'm going to walk in.
Chuck Murphy 33:40
Well, you were ahead of the curve. You were the one that really wanted mindfulness in the state of our health, right? Like I did.
Maggie Bright 33:45
I mean, I think it's it's interesting to me. There's another there's another sort of set of data within state of our health that that kind of you know straightforwardly asks how connected is mindfulness to other areas of your life, and I was, you know, most people say it's connected to mental health or spirituality. It helps fuel social relationships, but not so much around. It's not as connected to fitness and nutrition yet. And I actually think that's going to grow more too. I think you know, if you there's been a like a for decades, probably even longer than that, like mindful eating has been a big thing, but I wonder sort of like how fitness and nutrition trends will ultimately be impacted by the idea of mindfulness and how the three of them will connect more in the future. Because I think that's sort of the next place this goes, right? If mindfulness is about mental health, and ultimately it becomes about your broader well-being, and that includes fitness and nutrition. But I'm not sure how it all connects yet. I'm still working through that in my mind. The other place I've been thinking about it a lot is like you know, as you you know, when we go to shelves in the store right now, it's that's overwhelming sometimes. With all the choices that you have, and in some ways that's great, right? You can get exactly what you need, but is there like a mindfulness kind of overhaul of retail at some point where it you know focuses more on like a serene experience? I don't know, probably not. But I
Chuck Murphy 35:15
mean, that's that's the famous mustard study right there, right? Like right
Chuck Murphy 35:19
there, you go. Shout out to my my UC Irvine anteaters. I remember that woman's name, but there's that that professor did her did her mustard study.
Maggie Bright 35:29
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we I mean you know that like the the too many choices makes you less happy type of thing. But like, so how does how does that all ultimately come back together in a more consumer perspective, so
Chuck Murphy 35:43
Costco baby, two SKUs. That's it.
Maggie Bright 35:46
There's nothing to be said for that, right?
Chuck Murphy 35:50
They they were onto something very early. They know what they're doing,
Maggie Bright 35:54
unless they pick the wrong two SKUs, and then it's terrible.
Chuck Murphy 35:56
That's why everyone ends up with 40-seven types of mustard. They're worried. Yes, no, no, no, no. You want to go back and read the mustard study again?
Maggie Bright 36:05
Anyway, I love that we got from mindfulness and meditation to mustard. Like that is how broad our conversations are.
Chuck Murphy 36:14
Perfect. Yeah. It fits exactly what we do, right?
Maggie Bright 36:18
Exactly. Yeah. And I know, but I love this. I love that we include mindfulness as part of state of our health. I think it's a fun, it's a fun thing to think about, and you know, clearly an area of growth. It is, yeah, it's great.
Chuck Murphy 36:31
I think I think this report is really interesting, and yeah, read it like four times. Keep going back through it.
Speaker 2 36:38
Yeah.
Chuck Murphy 36:39
All right. Well, I have a 12-hour flight tonight, so you think I should just bring a sheet of paper and just sit with my thoughts?
Maggie Bright 36:47
I do. Do you want me to send you a journal? I have one that literally asks you yes/no questions. If that-that's the kind of journaling you're into. I've never opened it, but they exist.
Chuck Murphy 36:56
You've never opened it. Okay. Well, let's. We'll get into that next week, I
Maggie Bright 37:01
have a different journal that I use. Trust me, I have so many years of journals. But yeah, I think you should stare and you should write down all your deep thoughts, and then you know, see what happens. Maybe you'll come back completely refreshed and ready to go.
Chuck Murphy 37:17
Deep thoughts with Jack Handy. Okay, that's gonna that's gonna be my my entertainment for the flight.
Maggie Bright 37:23
Yep, I love it. You need to set an intention before you start too.
Chuck Murphy 37:26
Do you remember that? Do you get that reference? Deep thoughts with Jack. I do.
Maggie Bright 37:31
Of course, I do.
Chuck Murphy 37:32
Gosh, I'm seeing we're we're like the right age to remember. Yes, the people listening are like, "Who's Jack Andy? Maybe we should end this podcast with just a bubbling brook, you know, with some words floating over it.
Maggie Bright 37:44
I love it. I love it.
Chuck Murphy 37:47
So good. All right. Well, this was fun, and we'll we'll get back to this in a few next week.
Maggie Bright 37:53
Love it.
Chuck Murphy 37:54
All right.
Maggie Bright 37:55
Thanks.