Scent of Serenity: Mastering the Stress Olympics through Multisensory Healing
📑 Chapters
00:00 - Introduction & Sarah talking about herself
01:07 - Background behind Healium
02:48 - Our brains when we watch immersive videos
05:36 - Designing a successful immersive story
09:33 - Visual representations of what Healium does
15:17 - The importance of scent
18:07 - Indicators for different brain patterns
20:28 - Leveraging these tools for mental fitness
23:30 - Impact stories
32:12 - The future for immersive stories
37:50 - Jiani’s recap of the episode
39:53 - Sarah at 11 years old
43:22 - Challenges that Sarah had to overcome
47:17 - Sarah’s magic
Watch the full episode here.
On S5E7 of the @MAGICademy Podcast, we give a warm welcome to Sarah Hill! She is the founder and CEO of Healium, a company specializing in interactive media and mental fitness solutions. Aside from that, Sarah is an accomplished journalist with 12 Emmy awards under her hat, having dedicated over 25 years to storytelling and media innovation, and a background working with major news networks, including NBC, ABC, and CBS. She joins us today to talk about self-awareness and the power of immersive content for us to properly get to know about ourselves, our feelings, and how to behave in a corporate environment.
Sarah describes herself as a storyteller, using biometric inputs such as brain patterns and heart rate to tell her stories. We talk deeply about the different inputs the body gets, immersive stories and the effect they have on people, mental fitness as a relatively new concept, and how to leverage new technologies to have an efficient and productive state of mind.
🌼 Magical Insights
Critical role of Mental Fitness: Mental health is crucial for entrepreneurial leaders, as the entrepreneurial journey significantly impacts psychological well-being. A 2018 study revealed that entrepreneurs experience higher rates of mental health issues compared to the general population, including depression (30%), ADHD (29%), substance use (12%), and bipolar disorder (11%) (1). Recent research exploring the deterioration of self-worth in entrepreneurship found mismatches between expectations and experiences at three interacting levels: purpose, autonomy, and achievement. These mismatches materialize as incongruences between ideal states and actual experiences, leading to a diminished sense of control, direction, and worthiness (2).
Virtual Reality’s Potential to Heal: A systematic review of 20 articles revealed the diverse applications of Virtual Reality (VR) protocols in treating various mental health conditions. The studies focused on anxiety disorders (25%), depression (10%), posttraumatic stress disorder (15%), psychosis (15%), and stress (35%). Among them, 65% of the studies demonstrated the positive impact of VR therapies in alleviating stress and negative symptoms. These findings highlight the potential of XR technologies in mental health treatment. While 35% of the studies showed limited or no effect on certain positive dimensions, particularly in clinical samples, the overall results underscore the promising role of VR in enhancing mental health outcomes across a range of disorders (3).
Digital Forest Bathing in XR: Digital forest bathing uses virtual reality (VR) to simulate nature experiences to engage visual, auditory, and olfactory (scent) senses. A systematic review examined a total of 14 studies, involving virtual forests, beaches, and parks, where corresponding odors were utilized in the multisensory conditions. Most of the studies reported enhanced restoration outcomes (improved psychological and physiological outcome) after a multisensory exposure, almost similar to the one we experience in conventional natural environments (4).
Healing Potential of Scent: Research indicates that integrating scent into virtual reality (VR) environments has the potential to enhance mental strength by improving emotional regulation, reducing stress, and fostering relaxation. Studies show that scent cues in VR increase the sense of presence and realism, which can amplify the therapeutic impact of immersive experiences (5). For example, scents like lavender have been linked to relaxation, while citrus scents can boost focus and energy (6). Additionally, incorporating scent elements into immersive experiences, it is possible to treat and prevent Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (7).
⭐ What’s Sarah’s Magic?
She harnesses immersive media as digital therapeutics to heal stressed minds through curated immersive experiences.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the intersection of mental fitness, virtual reality, and multisensory experiences offers a promising frontier in mental health treatment and prevention. With a significant proportion of entrepreneurs facing mental health challenges, the need for effective interventions is clear. Virtual reality has demonstrated its potential across various mental health conditions, with a majority of studies showing positive outcomes.
Digital forest bathing, which incorporates visual, auditory, and olfactory stimuli in VR environments, has shown particular promise in replicating the restorative effects of natural environments. The addition of scent to these experiences not only enhances realism and presence but also contributes to specific therapeutic outcomes such as stress reduction and improved emotional regulation. As technology continues to advance, these multisensory VR experiences may provide accessible, effective tools for maintaining mental health, particularly for those in high-stress environments or with limited access to natural settings.
If you would like to stay tuned with our future guests and their magical stories. Welcome to join us.
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Munoz, P., & Barton, M. (2024, January). MIND Your Business: tackling the mental health crisis in entrepreneurship. Durham University Business School.
Muñoz, P., Barton, M.N., Braun, S., Chowdhury, F., Jayne-Little, N., Rowland, J., Sykes, K., Smith, J., Talbot-Jones, C., Taggart, A., & Komes, J. (2023). The deterioration of self-worth in entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing Insights.
Tay, J. L., Xie, H., & Sim, K. (2023). Effectiveness of augmented and virtual reality-based interventions in improving knowledge, attitudes, empathy and stigma regarding people with mental illnesses—A scoping review. Journal of Personalized Medicine, 13(1), 112.
Lopes, M. K., & Falk, T. H. (2024). Audio-visual-olfactory immersive digital nature exposure for stress and anxiety reduction: a systematic review on systems, outcomes, and challenges. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 5, 1252539.
Archer, N. S., Bluff, A., Eddy, A., Nikhil, C. K., Hazell, N., Frank, D., & Johnston, A. (2022). Odour enhances the sense of presence in a virtual reality environment. Plos one, 17(3), e0265039.
Mancini, M., Cherubino, P., Cartocci, G., Martinez, A., Borghini, G., Guastamacchia, E., ... & Babiloni, F. (2021). Forefront users’ experience evaluation by employing together virtual reality and electroencephalography: A case study on cognitive effects of scents. Brain Sciences, 11(2), 256.
S. Herz, R. (2021). Olfactory virtual reality: A new frontier in the treatment and prevention of posttraumatic stress disorder. Brain Sciences, 11(8), 1070.
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Sarah Hill is the CEO and founder of Healium, a pioneering company specializing in interactive media and mental fitness solutions. A 12-time Emmy award-winning journalist, Sarah has dedicated over 25 years to storytelling and media innovation. She has worked with major news networks, including NBC, ABC, and CBS, where she covered significant global events across various countries, including Sri Lanka and Congo.
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Jiani (00:03.097)
Welcome to MAGICademy podcast. Today with us is Sarah Hill, the founder and CEO of Helium, a helium technology, a technology that heals us and help us to overcome the stress pandemic. So great to have you, Sarah.
Sarah Hill (00:23.438)
Thank you, it's great to be here, delighted to share.
Jiani (00:27.513)
Wonderful. So for those who are, your story has appeared across major media and a lot of your research are actually done with very credible resource places and health, national health center. So if you were to introduce yourself in a brand new way that nobody has heard about across all the media outlets, how would you introduce you?
as of 2024.
Sarah Hill (00:59.534)
In my heart, I'm a storyteller. I am the CEO of a technology company called Helium, but I'm a storyteller. I tell stories with unique biometric inputs like your brain patterns, your heart rate, aroma, and using tech -enabled storytelling.
Jiani (01:17.849)
That's beautiful. Tech enabled storytelling. That's beautiful. And talking about helium, so what was the founding stories behind that? Like what made you decide to build a technology such as helium to make storytelling in the kind of a healing space?
Sarah Hill (01:42.862)
So my background is as a television journalist. I spent decades in media.
covered a lot of trauma as a local television news reporter, rapes, murders, homicides. We also did international stories where we went in with the trauma teams in the aftermath of the tsunami in Sri Lanka and Indonesia. And, you know, as a reporter, you're covering the worst day of someone's life, you know, a lot of times and over and over and over again. And so, you know, seeing that trauma in the world,
world, secondary trauma. A lot of journalists struggle with their own mental fitness. They struggle with sleep, as do any other high stress occupations like health care workers, attorneys. You know, it could be school counselors that are listening or working with victims of trauma on a daily basis. And so ultimately developed Helium, which is a media channel for stress management and sleep.
where you don't just passively watch the media, you're actually feeling it and contributing to a better digital diet, if you will, with watching these immersive videos.
Jiani (03:03.545)
That's interesting. So the immersive video environment helps us to potentially feel less stressed and feel more healed. And let's dive a little bit deeper into that. So how does exactly, what's the, based on the research that you've worked with NIH and how, what was kind of the underlying mechanism that's at play when.
say we watch like an immersive video and all of a sudden we're able to like feel less stress and yeah so I'm just we're just very curious.
Sarah Hill (03:44.11)
Yeah, it's a new layer of media that's powered by your bioinformatics. So the data that comes from your fitness trackers, like a smartwatch for heart rate or HRV or an EEG meditation headband that's capturing data from your brain patterns. Instead of just passively watching the media, you're actually feeling it and your biometric data is changing the environments and it's becoming reactive to you.
And so...
You know, just as media and video has the ability to harm, you know, if you watched violent videos or, you know, ugly things in the news or in the media constantly, that impacts your physiology. It can raise your heart rate. It can impact your brain patterns. And just as media can harm, it also has the ability to heal. And so, you know, as a content creator, I'm
creating you know content to try to shift brain patterns or heart rate away from the stress response and you know that's just what we're doing with with helium it's it's a media channel it's content.
that's designed in a very specific way to try to slow the fast activity in your brain, lower your heart rate, and allow you to become more self -aware that your brain patterns and your heart rate actually have the ability, what you think about has the ability to impact your brain patterns and heart rate and that your thoughts do have power to control things not only in the virtual world,
Sarah Hill (05:33.024)
but in the real world as well. And so our content is deployed either just on a mobile device or inside virtual reality goggles or spatial computing goggles, which is essentially just goggles that you put on like a pair of ski goggles. And it allows you to be inside a bubble of video, if you will. And, you know, your brain is believing what it sees. You know, you're not at the beach or you know, you're not really in the Aurora boardwalk.
you're in your bedroom or your office, but because that media is surrounding you and because you can see your own bioinformatics live stream inside those experiences, you're becoming more self -aware of how you need to breathe, the thoughts that you need to think about, and you're actually getting feedback and the environments are reacting to you.
Jiani (06:30.681)
That gets me curious. Are there... So in terms of designing that immersive story, what kind of story that really gets people feel less stressed and versus a story that maybe take longer or maybe some people may feel reduce the stress and people may not. How do... Yeah, what's the...
what's the difference like what differentiates a good healing stories versus okay healing stories.
Sarah Hill (07:09.486)
So in a bunch of studies, and I'm not a scientist, right? I'm the technologist. However, we've worked with scientists and other third parties have studied our content. And so in more than eight peer -reviewed journals, helium has been shown to quickly reduce anxiety or improve mood in as little as four minutes. So very quickly. And it's on a spectrum. So there are different kinds of stories. Some stories are audio only meditation, some
Jiani (07:33.753)
That's very fast.
Sarah Hill (07:39.392)
stories, have feedback from, you know, biofeedback or neurofeedback that you're seeing them inside these environments.
Some stories have video, some do not. And so what we found in our research and others is the more immersiveness that you add, the more quickly it downshifts the nervous system and the more feedback that you add, the more memorable, the more engaging that is to the user. And so for us, that's been, you know, a great journey of discovery over these many years of not only creating the content, but testing it in
you know, peer -reviewed, published it in peer -reviewed journals of what that kind, what that media does to your physiology. And so, you know, to us, we're story nerds and, you know, we are...
hyper -focused and really fascinated at how can we change the color, texture, volume of a story in order to maybe shift the high beta or reduce the heart rate and allow the user to see their feelings because after all, how are you supposed to learn to control what you can't actually see to know, am I doing it right? That's the one thing in mental fitness and that's what Helium is.
is it's content that's mental fitness. How are you supposed to learn to control if you were lifting weights and imagine lifting weights and you never be able to see your arm lifting or your bicep flexing to know, am I doing it right? And so helium is just adding gravity to that situation of feeling near of sorts that you can actually see those muscles or their brain patterns to become more self -aware. Certainly not.
Jiani (09:17.593)
yeah.
Sarah Hill (09:34.72)
a replacement for psychotropic medication. Helium is certainly not a replacement for professional counseling, but as exercise, as part of a healthy lifestyle and something that you can do for yourself as mental fitness, it's important to have these drugless, non -harmful coping mechanisms that you can learn to self -regulate on your own. And, you know, that self -regulation is a big tenet.
of our content because I don't know about you, but I never learned that self -regulation when I was a young person. Yoga and meditation wasn't in schools and certainly neurofeedback and biofeedback.
you know, the devices, the fitness trackers weren't around. And now there's, you know, a plethora of these 250 million fitness trackers out there that are currently displaying a 2D number or, you know, just a shape on your watch or something like that.
Helium takes that bio data and visualizes it into stories. It makes it immersive and it turns that heart rate data into something that you can actually see and learn to control.
Jiani (10:54.341)
I love that. It's like, because sometimes when seeing is believing, so sometimes if we cannot visualize it, we cannot build a kind of a neurological connection. And it's interesting. Can you share like, say if, if helium is to kind of visualizing the heartbeat while we're doing this podcast, what would the heartbeat look like visually? Or that'd be like a flower.
bloom or any way that we imagine or like flower of life whichever form.
Sarah Hill (11:29.23)
Yeah, it can be heart rate or it can be something called EEG, which is just shorthand for electroencephalogram, which basically it's a little EEG headband that's worn on your forehead that's capturing your brain pattern. Certainly not diagnostic in any way, but as a mirror and a gauge of self -awareness. So for example, you know, when you come into these experiences, it's capturing a baseline.
a baseline on your brain patterns or via your smartwatch on a heart rate and telling you what that baseline is when you came into the app. And then as you're going through the experience, you will see the environments change. So, you know, as an example of a way that they change, there's an aura that's around you. It's a beautiful aura. It looks like it has bubbles.
you know, kind of around you. And that aura will glow different colors based on your feeling states. So with that meditation headband, high beta is the fast activity in your brain or the stress activity in your brain. And as you're going through these experiences, you can see what that high beta activity did as your baseline and whether or not you are
better or worse in that that high beta activity, meaning are you moving towards more stress or are you moving away from the stress? And if you're moving away from the stress, the color and the aura will turn green.
much like a traffic light, green means go. And if it's, it's, you know, turning away, if it's heading towards the stress response, then it will glow yellow, much like a caution light that you need to downshift, breathe. There's a breath pacer inside these environments. And again, you're seeing that biometric data integrated so you can learn to self -regulate. There are, you know, 40 different experiences on the
Sarah Hill (13:34.496)
platform, we're constantly adding new content. You can float through the Ouroborialis with whales. You can see peaceful ancient sunsets and historic civilizations. You can float underwater with the Tree of Life. You can be in front of Atlantis. You can be in Maui. So it's virtual travel for your mind that's uniquely tied to your biometric data.
that comes from fitness trackers.
Jiani (14:11.737)
It's so beautiful. It's like a sacred space that you're building for people to access 24 -7 whenever they need it. And I resonate with you that the current healthcare is very sickness -based. However, as normal folks, we need to take responsibility of our own health, especially mental health, just to kind of exercise that.
mental fitness muscle and the visualization is one of the major key and even coming from the learning science background and when we deliver information the our processing center usually prioritize visual information than the other one so so visual is kind of one one of the primary sensors that we have so that's great yeah and then you also
Sarah Hill (15:05.422)
Yeah, I love how you phrase that because yes, the brain believes what it sees and we're just providing it with beautiful picturesque landscapes because sometimes people don't have the ability to go to someplace beautiful in their mind. We've seen that a lot with some of the trauma victims and survivors who use helium.
their therapist will tell them, you know, imagine a safe place and they don't have that historical perspective to know even how to imagine a safe place in their minds. Or if you were to say, imagine a beach, they don't have any, you know, baseline to know what that is. And so helium is providing those beautiful picturesque landscapes that help them.
create a stored memory in their mind that they can go back to and then in a stressful situation. So, you know, I really love how you phrase that of seeing it and you are correct. It is visual and these are positive stored memories.
Jiani (16:17.561)
Yeah, and even for folks who are able to visualize our ability to sustain that particular focus, that specific focus has been more and more challenging nowadays. So having something to help us as the baseline for our visualization is very helpful. That's great.
Sarah Hill (16:37.358)
Yeah, think about everything going on in the world right now, from the political climate to wars, natural disasters, human trauma. This is a mental health emergency. It is what my colleague likes to call the stress Olympics. And sadly, not all of us have trained for this what we call the stress Olympics.
Jiani (17:06.009)
Yes, so it's helping us to enhance our stress management more than mental health. And yes, we are actually going to go beyond mental health a little bit after this initial conversation. My next question is one of the research paper that you collaborated with the third party is talking about the importance of scent. So what is the car? Why is scent?
Sarah Hill (17:11.278)
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Jiani (17:35.481)
so important in terms of an immersive environment and how does SENT help us to develop according to Helium's philosophy, develop that self -awareness and the ability to manage our physiological states.
Sarah Hill (17:51.694)
One of the things that was interesting for us to learn as content creators and storytellers.
was the fact that aroma penetrates the brain far deeply than a lot of other inputs. And so we collaborated with a great company called OVR Technology, and they have a scent wearable where you are importing aroma. It's like an electronic device that's either attached to a mobile device or to a virtual reality headset.
And so you're not just passively watching the media, you're actually smelling it. And so in helium, there's an experience, it's called Awake the Light, where you start out in this very dark cave and there are rocks around you and slowly you're feeling these orbs of light that move through you and out into the environment. And as you're doing that, eventually you're coming out to fresh air. And so we created some experience
with OVR's wearable technology and helium's technology that changes the aroma according to that experience. So you start out in the dark cave and you're smelling it like a dark, dank cave.
and it feels very closed and then as you move out into the fresh air and the large environment you're actually smelling the fresh air all around you. So you're also able to pick up from your remote control, we turned it into a lavender stalk, a stalk of lavender flower and so inside you know this beautiful lavender field of Glacier Lake which is another experience and story inside Healy.
Sarah Hill (19:44.528)
at the end you pick up the remote control and you're able to smell that lavender flower. And you know again in doing brain maps on these individuals you could see significant shifts in their stress response when they took those inhalations of lavender. And you know that for us was very interesting to see that.
storytelling input as having a significant impact on their brain patterns and on their physiology.
Jiani (20:20.185)
I love that. And they ask a technical question and you can say you would refer to somebody else to answer it. I would be curious, what is the kind of physiological state of beta or gamma or what are some indicators that showcase somebody is in a very calm, productive, healthy state?
Were there any particular indicators that you look at?
Sarah Hill (20:53.998)
Neurofeedback research over the decades shows that different brain patterns are associated with different feeling states. So high beta activity is the fast activity in your brain. During sleep, you can have delta or theta waves. Alpha activity is a slow activity in the brain.
a gamma asymmetry is associated with feelings of positivity, love, joy, or appreciation. So there's a long list of peer -reviewed research about how different brain patterns can impact different feeling states. And so...
you know helium didn't create those brain patterns and feeling states. We create the content that's based on those those neurofeedback principles. And so inside our app we have a video curriculum called Heal You.
and it's with Dr. Jeff Tarrant from the NeuroMeditation Institute. And that's essentially the core principles behind Helium is that not all meditation is the same. There's focus, positivity, mindfulness, sleep, all different kinds of states that you're wanting to meditate in. It's not just all downshift your nervous system. You might need to focus meditation or you might need some positivity in your life. And so all of those different
flavors of meditation are also associated with different brain states. And inside Helium, that video curriculum is called Heal You with Dr. Jeff Terrence. You can also read more about his work at the NeuroMeditation Institute, where he also gives classes about how different meditations can trigger and also how you can learn to
Sarah Hill (22:47.648)
shift your high beta activity or you can actually learn to self -regulate and downshift your nervous system.
Jiani (22:55.609)
I love that. And we talked about kind of the framework behind how everything works in terms of what can a healing story look like, what are some baseline of a healthy mental state look like, and we also talk about the importance of scent, the smell, and how that helps us to quickly regulate our emotional state.
And we may be curious, our audiences are in the learning development space, leaders, entrepreneurs, in the workplace health kind of context. How can leaders of all sorts leverage the power of healing technologies to help them develop better self -awareness?
better stress management for themselves and also for their teams. Do you have some stories to share or some perspectives to share as well?
Sarah Hill (23:53.134)
Yes, certainly for teams and certainly for executive leadership.
Mental fitness is very important. Used to be that we didn't talk about our mental wellness, like we talk about our physical fitness. I mean, it would be enough, you know, in decades ago, you know, it might've been commonplace to say I'm going to the gym, but you would never say in an office that I'm going to a therapist or I'm going to work on my mental wellness. And now you do, right? Everyone is open, you know, with the desire.
to achieve a better mental wellness. And that starts at the top. It's important for leaders to demonstrate the importance of mental fitness, not just physical fitness, but mental fitness and mental wellness and spending time to work on yourself.
And helium is just one of those many ways that you can learn to self -regulate. Again, not as a replacement for professional counseling, which we all know is one of the best things that we can do for ourselves. You can have mental fitness challenges, much in the old days of a pedometer, right, where you were tracking your steps. You can also do that with helium as well. Because you're capturing quantitative data,
and it's a data -driven platform, you're able to compete with different teams to see how many helium points or helium experience points that you get. So it adds numbers and gravity to something that historically hasn't been able to physically measure. You can physically measure your physical fitness. How many miles did you do?
Sarah Hill (25:44.752)
how many minutes did you go, how many calories did you burn? Helium is akin to that, but we've gamified the experience with content, with self -regulation, and then also with quantitative data that as executive leaders, they can see exactly how did my team's brain patterns or heart rate shift?
over that time that we were using it. So it certainly takes the stigma out of mental wellness and is something that makes it fun. Right? This is fun.
Who does not want to float through the Aurora Borealis with humpback whales, right? I mean, yeah, these are fun experiences that again can teach you how to learn to self -regulate in a way that, you know, it injects a bit of a talkability about mental fitness in this stress Olympics that were,
Jiani (26:34.341)
I'm sorry.
Sarah Hill (26:57.87)
all living in that not all of us have trained for.
Jiani (27:01.625)
And do you have some particular stories like impact stories to share? Maybe I know veterans are one of the audiences, leaders in army or all sorts of high stress environment. Can you share some stories? I'm just so curious to hear that.
Sarah Hill (27:23.15)
Yeah, and these are essentially, you know, we all...
in these high stress and high pressure environments, we're worker athletes, right? And the more that we can better our mental fitness, the more that can improve our own human performance and reduce the likelihood of errors. So for instance, and we have a lot of stories on our blog and also in our science section at trihelium .com slash science. One of them was with a hundred frontline healthcare workers during the height of COVID. Talk about high pressure. They're surrounded.
by trauma every single day. Many of them were isolated from their families. And so they were using helium in the height of that trauma to instantly escape their current reality and provide them some virtual peace. And that particular study...
was published and showed significant reductions in anxiety and mood improvement very quickly in as little as four minutes. And again, this is not a drug. It is media and it's a coping mechanism that's easy to use, that it's portable. So for us, that was fascinating to see how nurses and high -pressure occupations are using it. And as far as
As far as veterans with post -traumatic stress, obviously, you know, we're losing our veterans at a rate of 20 a day just to suicide.
Sarah Hill (28:57.198)
And there's important work that's being done inside Veterans hospitals all across the nation. And a program called VA Immersive has really picked up that torch and raised a lot of awareness among these VA hospitals that, hey, there is a mental health emergency. This is a drugless tool that can quickly help. It's portable. It's affordable. It's accessible. And they've now rolled out virtual
virtual reality goggles to all 50 states with these VA hospitals and veterans homes. So, you know, our product serves a lot of veterans in, you know, a lot of VA hospitals around the nation. And one of them, you know, his name was Mr. Sinclair. Mr. Sinclair lived in rural Missouri and he was able to, you know,
see his memorials inside virtual reality in Washington DC, he was able to reduce his stress. And these are very timely experiences specifically for individuals who are experiencing end of life times. And what we found in a lot of these experiences is that they would pass away shortly thereafter.
And so, you know, the ability to be able to allow them to virtually visit maybe their World War II memorial, their Vietnam memorial before they pass is, you know, a very important private memory for them and also for their family in providing them comfort that, you know, maybe they didn't get the opportunity to see that memorial in person as part of, you know, programs, great programs called Honor Flight, which flies veterans on.
on real flights to see their memorials in Washington DC. But sadly, there are more than 40 ,000 veterans currently on a waiting list for honor flights. And there aren't enough flights to get them to DC. So this is one alternative for those individuals who aren't able to physically travel there or their bodies won't allow them to go. So.
Sarah Hill (31:21.166)
We have tons of stories. Helium is used with victims of gender -based violence in Iraq.
There is a great humanitarian aid organization called Norwegian Church Aid, which is really doing innovative work to provide new coping mechanisms for these survivors and providing them with those stored memories, those positive stored memories that they can go back to in stressful situations. And the women in those experiences reported significant shifts.
reported that they did have stored memories, positive stored memories that they were able to go back to inside stressful situations. So, you know, I could go on and on and on about the stories, but on a daily basis, you know, there are people experiencing the worst day of their lives and,
you know, this is a way that they can instantly escape, teach themselves something about themselves that maybe they didn't know about how to breathe or how to self -regulate their heart rate or even, you know, their own brain patterns. I know when I was a youngster, I didn't even know that my brain had electricity, much less that you have the ability to, you know, learn to, you know, shift those brain patterns and heart rate. Nobody told me that.
me that. There was physical fitness right in schools but yeah but not a lot. I didn't learn that till I was an adult that my brain you could actually you know shift brain patterns and heart rate away from a stress response. It's very valuable for me and that's why I formed the company.
Jiani (32:57.945)
A lot of us don't know.
Jiani (33:16.761)
Yeah, and just imagine like in a typical work situation, whether it's a startup or it's an organization, there's a lot of high stress moments. Maybe it's not life or death, but maybe it's just, are we on time delivering the products? Are we, there's a conflict within the teams, can we resolve that? And then the manager has, you know, it's trying to kind of...
balance, with the leaders trying to motivate and however there's a high stress kind of energy over there and then if everybody is able to be aware of that physiological state and be able to quickly as as short as like four minutes like you know let me take a four minute break and then just like put their selves in that like calm state and then re -entering into the conversation whatever that was and
and shift, like you mentioned, shift that energy, shift their mental state. And then there could be a golden opportunity for a new solution, for a new dynamic, for a new opportunity, for an enhanced trust and collaboration. So, such a beautiful... Can't believe it's four minutes. It's amazing.
Sarah Hill (34:35.598)
Yeah, and I love the way you put that because, you know, there's so much conflict in the world right now. I mean, there really is.
And anytime you can notch down the level of stress or inject a bit of brevity or interrupt a bad moment or negative moment in a room, I mean, that has value. That has value in mending broken relationships. It has value in boosting trust.
Increasing positive interactions and you know think about for the executive leaders that are listening in watching your podcast You know that value of you know ability to improve that human performance and you know all of that comes with you know doing some small things for yourself not just helium but you know a positive diet You know healthy relationships and stress is ugly
right? And you know, and it can manifest itself in some ugly ways.
And, you know, at least for myself, my stress manifested as an inability to sleep as a news reporter. And when you're not sleeping, your mind is not resetting. It can have very negative impacts on your physiology. And so, yeah, mental wellness is no longer a luxury. It's an important tool in your toolkit for human performance for your
Sarah Hill (36:16.384)
your employees and also for yourself as a leader. And, you know, it's important for leaders to model that behavior, you know, that your leaders, I would hope that they model physical fitness, that your employees see you leaving the office at, you know, regular times of the day to go work out your body or your mind either way and let them know that, hey, I am leaving now.
and it's okay that I'm going to leave to do something for myself. I think that's really important. And we see that more and more with executive leadership in physical fitness and going to the gym. But the same should be said for that mental wellness as well, mental fitness.
Jiani (37:07.417)
Mental fitness, that's beautiful. And as we move into the future, what would you see as the best possible future unfolding using the Helion approach and with all the emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, the Web3 or the Neuralink or more and more newer technologies and how?
How would you foresee that? What's the picture in your mind?
Sarah Hill (37:42.926)
Picture in my mind would be dreaming of a day at an every gym. You had not just treadmills, but you had.
you know, VR goggles that ways, you know, places that people could also work on their mental fitness. I have no doubt that we'll be able to find that. I also have no doubt that we'll be able to find someday these drugless tools inside Walgreens and inside CVS or, you know, your local pharmacy that just as you can go and get a bandaid for your knee, you too can go get something for your mind and, and,
to get your mind on the right track. Sequestering mental wellness behind places that are not accessible or solely in the hospital or even solely in a therapist's office. We need to be putting these tools in the hands of places where they're more readily accessible because not everyone is willing to raise their hand and say,
I want to talk to a therapist. Not everyone is there on that trajectory, even though we know it's one of the best things that we can do for ourselves. So I dream of a day when you're seeing physical fitness and importance, you know, right with mental fitness and that it's okay to leave the office.
to have a mental health day and to find ways to downshift as a positive coping mechanism.
Jiani (39:27.161)
And I think maybe on that time when we think, it's a coping, it's actually management, it's actually the way we live and people will see mental fitness as just this common thing like you said, content as medicine, immersive content as medicine.
Sarah Hill (39:48.782)
Yeah, we almost call it digital pseudocalls in a way. Yeah, it's not digital, full -blown digital therapeutic. It's not meant to be prescribed by a doctor in a hospital.
Jiani (39:52.409)
stitches, pseudocalls.
Sarah Hill (40:03.726)
But it's things that you can use in your home, on your phone, on your virtual reality goggles to learn to self -regulate. You had also asked about AI and Neuralink and all of these really exciting new frontiers, which is exciting, but also the need for
guardrails are around it, right? We deal with biometric data inside our company, which is a very sensitive data set. And so, even from the very beginnings of our company, we baked in data privacy by design and are making sure that as we are innovating using these new technologies, because all of these new technologies, yes, there's the opportunity to be harmful.
Jiani (40:27.193)
Yes.
Sarah Hill (40:54.128)
but there is an opportunity to accelerate that healing and provide for greater access. And also scale, to be able to scale therapy and all of the other ways that a lot of companies are using AI and other new technologies in order to scale therapy.
But from the very beginning, the way we innovate is right alongside data protection so that data privacy is baked into the product by design from the very beginning. So that fast forward in a few years, you have.
You know, you had GDPR, you have the California biometric privacy laws, you have new laws coming down in Colorado. Like this is an ever changing landscape as it relates to data privacy and protection. And so to us, you know, our data protection officer, our DPO alerts us, hey, there's something coming down from here.
we should probably bake that practice, that data privacy, by design to comply with that law even before it's passed because it will probably be passed. And so, you know, we did that with GDPR and we were doing that with all of these other protections and those are our own, you know, guardrails. And, you know, it's difficult sometimes because we want to move faster.
And you just want to do the thing and just bake the new software or use the new tools. But for us, you have to stop, have a data impact assessment, see how that particular tool or technology impacts it. Do we need to...
Sarah Hill (43:03.342)
change a privacy policy, how do we ensure that that customer data is safe as much as we can? And so that's the one thing that I'm excited about to see the companies that are doing that in baking in that data privacy by design from the very beginning and innovating alongside that, because data privacy and protection.
is also an innovation, right? You can innovate in that space as well as in all of the other spaces.
Jiani (43:36.665)
Yes.
Jiani (43:42.169)
That's beautiful. And well, very intensive yet imaginative and beautiful conversation that we had. Just to give a brief recap for our audience, we talked about the founding story of helium, how Sarah pivoted from a news reporter covering disastrous stories into building helium, a helium technology.
a digital pseudocall technology that helps people to self be self aware and self manage their physiological their mental state and how as in in this time of stress Olympics everybody has that it's not just a luxury but everybody has the responsibility to manage that and also as we move from the mental health space.
of the veterans, of people who experience great trauma. We also pivot into the conversation about leaders, executive leaders, founders, entrepreneurs, team talents. When we are facing stressful environments or situations, how we can take that responsibility in as little as four minutes to really help ourselves manage and reset our emotions.
before we redive in and reengage into those difficult conversations. And that presents us with great opportunities to open up new solutions, new conversations, new dynamics, and new dialogues, and a new future, new micro future at that moment. So it's a critical element. And we'll also talk about the future of mental health care and how it's going to move.
away from like everybody doesn't want to talk about it to like, yeah, just come in, you can just find the CVS and you can pick your style, your preferences and all that. And then we also talk about the risks of the data privacy and how that needs to be taken great care and thoughtful considerations in conjunction with technology innovations. So it's beautiful.
Jiani (46:01.049)
So Sarah, and let's dive into the magic part of the conversation. When you were 11 or 16, whichever age group you want to associate with for that story, what did you enjoy creating so much that time just disappeared for you?
Sarah Hill (46:21.454)
I've always enjoyed creating. When I was a young girl at the age of 11, I used to be a dancer. And so to me, choreography has roots in storytelling because you're essentially telling a story with your body. And so that's where I was in my mindset. And I remember my grandma, speaking of magic, would always say, Sarah, there's magic in believing.
And that was always a great phrase that resonated with me throughout my life and in the many different transitions that my life and my career have taken from a mom.
to a television reporter, to a storyteller for a corporation, to now with my own company. And I think in that, that those words magic in believing.
is important because we always think in those transitions, well, how do I move from there to there? Or sometimes we think, well, I don't have the skills I need in order to identify with that new place. And to me, I always tell people, round up.
Maybe you aren't the president of your corporation yet, or maybe you haven't filled out the paperwork for your company yet, but what you say in your heart manifests itself in real life, and there's magic in believing that you can actually do that. And so start identifying yourself as where you want to go.
Sarah Hill (48:08.366)
and not necessarily where you are now. So for instance, when I formed my own storytelling company and virtual reality company many years ago, it was in the nascent days. I didn't even have any equipment yet. And so it was very difficult for me to say I was a VR creator because I hadn't created any VR yet. And...
That was an important lesson for me to learn that identify as where you want to go and how you want to be. And so I started identifying as a VR creator.
You know, we had some large corporations that hired us to create some virtual reality content all around the world. And obviously what was in my heart then manifested into reality. And, you know, now look, we've done, you know, a bunch of different experiences all over, you know, around the world.
We have a popular product that's providing healing in some pretty ugly places and providing that light. So I love those words. There's magic in believing and that's a great title for your podcast. I love those words behind you, magic.
Jiani (49:26.329)
Thank you. I think a lot of us, our audiences, no matter where you are, where you are geographically or mentally or career -wise, there's always magic within you that you need to believe. Like Sarah said, believe and live in that space and work toward it. Efforts are still needed.
within time it will happen. So we just need to believe in that.
Thank you, Sarah, for sharing that story. And...
Sarah Hill (50:12.462)
Thank you. It's my pleasure.
Jiani (50:17.561)
And let's take a small pivot.
in your life did you have to overcome some particular challenges to of course there's going to be a lot some really deep deep challenges or challenges that you still remember until now and that helped to shape who you are today.
Sarah Hill (50:46.318)
Yes, I think everybody has to overcome challenges in their lives. And, you know, looking back on it to an outsider, my challenges might not seem like a big of a struggle. I mean, I grew up in a rural community in a K -312 school. So that's one school that had kindergarten through senior high school, very small farming community. And while that was great in many ways,
there's a lot to learn going out into larger communities and also just a lot to learn in founding a company.
in the middle of Missouri, trying to raise money for a company in the middle of Missouri or the Silicon Prairie as I call it. Female founders lack traditional access to venture capital. And so that was really difficult for us in the early days to get our product off the ground.
because nobody has ever heard of us. There wasn't a lot of, there was one angel group, not even a VC firm in our community. So that's been a struggle and obviously, as founders, all founders, you get a lot of nos, thousands of nos, not just about investment, but about your product. And so for us,
it was really important that we develop a culture around how you deal with that negativity and you know how you deal with a coping mechanism because you know if you think of the hundreds or thousands of times that you've been told no either about your product or something like that it doesn't might seem like a lot but thinking of it as you know 250 times that you're punched in the gut and then you have to get up and you know
Sarah Hill (52:50.446)
continue to operate after that negativity, it's tough. And so, you know, you learn to surround yourself with people who can help you properly place that grief and celebrate knows. You know, in our company, we now celebrate the knows. Knows are data.
They are fertilizer. It might stink at the time, but you know, you put it all over you, you embrace it and you learn from it. And that data will one day lead you to a yes.
And all of those no's are sweeter, right? Because you knew what it took to get to that yes.
Jiani (53:44.569)
I think your story does not only resonate with people who try to get funding for leaders who wanted to put forth a particular initiative. There's gonna be a lot of no's because change is hard, change is difficult and whenever there's a change, whether you're working with a system or working with a group of people, you're gonna have a lot of tough moments like no's like...
and celebrating the nose is actually very liberating. Like you said, it's a data point and it's helping us. Okay, great. All right, the other way. It's beautiful.
Sarah Hill (54:26.574)
Yeah, and it's a great point of culture even for some of our younger employees. They'll come in and say, hey, I got a note today. They told me no, with this big smile and in the back of the mind like, someday we'll show them. And so.
You know, that's also been great to see our employees develop that proper placement of grief of the word no, that they're already using in their lives. And that's something I wish I, as a young person, would have better learned how to deal with that.
Jiani (55:12.729)
Such an empowering conversation with you, Sarah. As we conclude our conversation, what do you think is your overall magic as of 2024? Our magic may change or shift or evolve, but like 2024, what is your magic?
Sarah Hill (55:30.862)
Our magic are stories and our magic is in believing.
Jiani (55:44.313)
Thank you, Sarah, for sharing your stories. Thank you. And for people who are interested to get in touch with Sarah and learn about the human power of stories, her contact information will be attached in the show note below. So welcome, community, to get each other connected and to build new stories.
Sarah Hill (55:45.966)
Thank you. It was delightful to chat with you. Keep going.
Sarah Hill (56:12.11)
Absolutely.
Jiani (56:14.233)
Thank you, Sarah.
Sarah Hill (56:15.406)
Thank you.
Disclaimer
The content shared is to highlight the passion and wonder of our guests. It is not professional advice. Please read our evidence-based research to help you develop your unique understanding.
AI technologies have been utilized to assist in creating content derived from genuine conversations. All generated material undergoes thorough human review to ensure accuracy, relevance, and quality.
