A two-year progress report on San Luis Obispo County’s first meditation pod, originally meant to reduce stressors for its jail diversion population, revealed the device was source of relief for its users.
“Through the sound, through the vibrations, through the lights, and through this personalized, individualized space, we recognized that we weren’t really getting people to meditate,” Heal Founder and CEO Mahesh Natrajan said. “What we were getting them to do is to self-regulate, is to be engaged in the conversation that they were going to have after the interventions when they met their therapists.”
Natrajan’s multi-sensory stimulation therapy company partnered with the county to create the Heal Meditation project or SoundHeal in 2021. Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) innovation funds—a state-allocated pot of money dedicated to testing and trying new practices in the field of mental health—paid for the 4-by-4-foot structure called the Heal Pod. MHSA money for the project came from 2004’s Proposition 63, a 1 percent tax on incomes totaling $1 million and more.
The Heal Pod’s first set of users were people in the county’s justice system—those on probation, court-ordered appointees, and some of the recently incarcerated. Data for the 2024 two-year report on the Heal Pod came from 57 people who documented their experiences between September 2022 and March 2024.
“Other commonly selected behaviors are reorganizing, building good habits, and accepting challenges,” the report said. “Over 25 percent reported that their time
in the pod helped them spend more time moving outside, be it walking, biking, running, or hiking.”
Seventy-three percent of participants who kept monthly journals said that participating in fewer than 10 sessions in the Heal Pod frequently helped with their well-being.
Of the people who experienced 30 or more sessions in the pod, 83 percent of participants said the device “always and very frequently” helped them.
“What that is showing us and helped us understand is that when people stay with it, they benefit from it,” Natrajan said.
While the latest report is numbers-based, Natrajan hopes future reports on the Heal Pod incorporate accounts from participants themselves.
“These are people who don’t have vocabulary to speak because they’re in … justice services, and look at what they’re writing [in the journals],” he said. “There is something to say about one person saying, ‘You know what, I was going to do something; I was going to self-harm, and I didn’t.'”
The Heal founder also wants later reports to focus on the impact the pod had on therapists as well, and the value they get out it.
In the meantime, Natrajan said he’s pleased with the improvements made on the pod itself. After listening to feedback from several clients, the old meditation pod—a sound insulated, enclosed space with a curtain entry and a padded chair with a backrest—got swapped.
The updated pod, located on the Behavioral Health Department’s central campus, now has a more comfortable seat, more soundtracks for vibrations and pain management, and light therapy.
“We raised the height of the seat because a lot of people said that it was too low and they had knee problems and pain, things like that,” Natrajan said. “We’ve incorporated as much as we could to accommodate for the entire population as a whole, wherever we can.”
Fast facts
• The Associated Collegiate Press inducted Cal Poly student news outlet Mustang News into its Hall of Fame on March 8. Mustang News joins 57 newspapers, 10 yearbooks, and four magazines inducted during the past 36 years for excellence in student journalism.
• Sustainable startup Mr. Turtle’s refillable laundry detergent station crafted from wood made its collegiate debut on March 9. Cal Poly students can now stock up on detergent at Poly Canyon Market in the Poly Canyon Village second-year apartment complex. Δ
Reach Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal at brajagopal@newtimesslo.com.
Correction: This story has been updated to include the correct number of people who documented their experiences with the Heal pod between September 2022 and March 2024.
This article appears in Mar 13-23, 2025.