BetterTalks by BetterSpace James Dashwood

Tim Antos left banking 6 years ago to found Kokoon (https://uk.kokoon.io/), aiming to help people get better sleep, a problem he himself had solved by going to a sleep clinic, which was time consuming and expensive.  Developed over the last 6 years, these headphones are comfortable to sleep in and pack lots of tech, including sleep coaching, tracking, the ability to fade out of whatever you are listening to when you fall asleep and more besides.

Sleep has become big business, and now more than ever people are struggling to get enough good quality sleep. These guys have come up with a really interesting, innovative formula.

Join James as he meets Emily from Seedball. Emily founded Seedball with Ana Attlee after meeting her at the University of Aberdeen while researching conservation and systems biology. They shared an interest in using enterprise to help the environment by turning research into practical action.  Seedball was the result of this encounter. 

Seedball is a non-profit company on a massive mission to help increase the abundance of British wildflowers and wildlife that depend upon them.  Their balls are now stocked by over 150 retailers across Europe.  

Selma talks about her path to gong meditation, via business school and a corporate career, managing her business during Covid and even gives us a gong demonstration.

James talks to Asim, CEO and founder of Healing Clouds, an online therapy platform that aims to make therapy affordable and accessible. Therapy can be invaluable for so many, but often has a huge barrier to entry in that it is very expensive, and you can't just do it once.  The new wave of online therapy platforms is a genuinely exciting development in mental health, and here we listen to Asim share how he thinks companies like his can make a difference.

Gregor Henderson is the Director for mental health at Public Health England, a position that must be difficult but very interesting at this time in which the collective mental health of our country, and the world, is under enormous strain.  Gregor is on the board of Betterspace, but is also just a lovely man, and makes for a very interesting listen.  He has some interesting insights into what is going on at PHE, and some words of reassurance too.

In this episode, I talk to Dr Heather McKee, a leading behaviour change specialist, speaker and founder of drheathermckee.co.uk. This is the first podcast we have recorded during the coronavirus, and naturally we talk about how we can best adapt to these strange new times. Heather gives some brilliant, practical advice we can all use to feel better whilst isolating and working from home.

Heather's mission is to help people create lifelong healthy habits through equipping them with the skills, knowledge and confidence to maintain these habits daily, and has developed her own programme, called Bite Sized Habits.

Dr McKee’s research has been published internationally in academic journals and is featured in Time, Vogue, The Times, and the BBC.