Tamara Levitt | |
|---|---|
 Levitt in photoshoot for Experience Life magazine in 2019 | |
| Born | December 2, 1971 |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Known for | Narrator of the Calm app |
Tamara Levitt (born December 2, 1971) [1] [2] is a Canadian author, mindfulness instructor, and voice-over artist most widely known as the narrator for the Calm app. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
Levitt had a difficult relationship with her father growing up. At an early age, she began singing and writing music, which helped her manage her feelings towards her father. Around age 12, she began a professional stage career, singing and acting. However, by the time she was 14, she had developed anxiety, depression and an eating disorder, [5] [8] and described herself as "an angry punk rocker" whose childhood "wasn't an easy one". [8]
When she was 18, she discovered the benefits of meditation at an eight-week mindfulness and meditation course at an eating disorders centre in Toronto. [5] [8] [9]
Levitt continued working as a musician and a voice-over actress [6] until she gave up both in her mid-20s, because of the pressure she put herself under. [5]
She began developing meditation and mindfulness sessions for corporations, together with short films, television productions, and books on mindfulness. [5] Her 2017 children's book, The Secret to Clara's Calm, was reviewed by Kirkus, who said "Clara may just be too calm." [10]
In 2014, Levitt reached out via e-mail with a résumé to Calm's co-founders, Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith. [5] She has held the title of Head of Mindfulness at the app since November 2014 [5] [11] and has undisclosed equity in the company. [8] [5] As the Head of Mindfulness, Levitt leads the creative development of content on Calm. "The Daily Calm" is the app's most popular feature, which Levitt writes and then records her narration in a studio in Toronto. [8] According to The New York Times , as of July 2019 she had written and recorded "hundreds" of meditations. [3] That same month CTV news said she was "responsible for the daily meditation practice of more than two million people." [8]
In Levitt's first four years at Calm, subscriptions grew from 2,500 subscribers to one million. [5] Fans of Levitt have described her voice as "marvelous", "hypnotic", and "somehow magic". [6] One stated that if she were to start recording commercials, that they would "probably end up buying three insurance policies and a Snuggie before snapping out of it". [6]
Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state.
Amanda Laura Bynes is an American actress, known for her work in television and film throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Bynes began her career as a child actress, working on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That (1996–2000), and had a breakthrough starring in its spin-off series The Amanda Show (1999–2002) and receiving several accolades.
Amanda Michelle Seyfried is an American actress. Born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, she began modeling at age 11 and ventured into acting at 15, with recurring roles as Lucy Montgomery on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns (1999–2001) and Joni Stafford on the ABC soap opera All My Children (2003). She came to prominence for her feature film debut in the teen comedy Mean Girls (2004), and her recurring roles as Lilly Kane on the CW/Hulu television series Veronica Mars (2004–2006) and Sarah Henrickson on the HBO drama series Big Love (2006–2011).
Mindfulness is the practice of purposely bringing one's attention to the present-moment experience without evaluation, a skill one develops through meditation or other training. Mindfulness derives from sati, a significant element of Hindu and Buddhist traditions, and is based on Zen, Vipassanā, and Tibetan meditation techniques. Though definitions and techniques of mindfulness are wide-ranging, Buddhist traditions explain what constitutes mindfulness such as how past, present and future moments arise and cease as momentary sense impressions and mental phenomena. Individuals who have contributed to the popularity of mindfulness in the modern Western context include Thích Nhất Hạnh, Herbert Benson, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Richard J. Davidson, and Sam Harris.
Meditation music is music performed to aid in the practice of meditation. It can have a specific religious content, but also more recently has been associated with modern composers who use meditation techniques in their process of composition, or who compose such music with no particular religious group as a focus. The concept also includes music performed as an act of meditation.
Tara Brach is an American psychologist, author, and proponent of Buddhist meditation. She is a guiding teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. (IMCW). Her colleagues in the Vipassanā, or insight meditation tradition, include Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, and Joseph Goldstein. Brach also teaches about Buddhist meditation at centers for meditation and yoga in the United States and Europe, including Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California; the Kripalu Center; and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies.
Marsha M. Linehan is an American psychologist and author. She is the creator of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), a type of psychotherapy that combines cognitive restructuring with acceptance, mindfulness, and shaping.
Racing thoughts refers to the rapid thought patterns that often occur in manic, hypomanic, or mixed episodes. While racing thoughts are most commonly described in people with bipolar disorder and sleep apnea, they are also common with anxiety disorders, OCD, and other psychiatric disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Racing thoughts are also associated with sleep deprivation, hyperthyroidism and the use of amphetamines.
Susan Smalley is an American behavioral geneticist, writer and activist. The co-author of Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness, she is the founder of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior (MARC), and professor emerita in the department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA. Her research centers on the genetic basis of childhood-onset behavior disorders, such as ADHD, and the cognitive and emotional impact of mindfulness meditation on health and wellbeing. She has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and lectured globally on the genetics of human behavior and the science of mindfulness.
Moshi Monsters was a British web browser massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) aimed at children aged 6–12, with over 80 million registered users in 150 territories worldwide. Users could choose from one of six virtual pet monsters they could create, name and nurture. Once their pet had been customized, players could navigate their way around Monstro City, take daily puzzle challenges to earn 'Rox', play games, personalize their room and communicate with other users in a safe environment, although this has been disputed.
Synapse Group, Inc. is a multichannel marketing company. Synapse is also the largest consumer magazine distributor in the United States, with access to over 700 magazine titles from all the major publishers. Synapse attracts subscribers for these publications by working through a number of non-traditional marketing channels, including credit card issuers, catalog companies, and airline frequent-flyer programs.
Andy Puddicombe is a British author, public speaker and a teacher of meditation and mindfulness. He, alongside Richard Pierson, is the co-founder of Headspace, a digital health company that provides guided meditation training and mindfulness for its users.
Headspace, a subsidiary of Headspace Health, is an English-American online company, specializing in meditation. It was incorporated in May 2010 in London, England, by Andy Puddicombe and Richard Pierson. It is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, with offices in San Francisco and London.
Lilly Saini Singh is a Canadian YouTuber. Singh began making YouTube videos in 2010. She originally appeared under the pseudonym Superwoman, her YouTube username until 2019. In 2016, she was included in Forbes list of world's highest paid YouTubers ranking third and earning a reported $7.5 million. By 2017, she was ranked tenth on the Forbes list of the world's highest-paid YouTube stars, earning a reported $10.5 million; as of February 2022 she has 14.7 million subscribers and over three billion video views. Forbes named her one of the 40 most powerful people in comedy in 2019. She has received an MTV Fandom Award, four Streamy Awards, two Teen Choice Awards and a People's Choice Award.
Mindfulness and technology is a movement in research and design, that encourages the user to become aware of the present moment, rather than losing oneself in a technological device. This field encompasses multidisciplinary participation between design, psychology, computer science, and religion. Mindfulness stems from Buddhist meditation practices and refers to the awareness that arises through paying attention on purpose in the present moment, and in a non-judgmental mindset. In the field of Human-Computer Interaction, research is being done on Techno-spirituality — the study of how technology can facilitate feelings of awe, wonder, transcendence, and mindfulness and on Slow design, which facilitates self-reflection. The excessive use of personal devices, such as smartphones and laptops, can lead to the deterioration of mental and physical health. This area focuses on redesigning and creating technology to improve the wellbeing of its users.
Calm.com, Inc., doing business as Calm, is a software company based in San Francisco, California. It produces meditation products, including guided meditations and Sleep Stories on its subscription-based app.
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Mindful Yoga or Mindfulness Yoga combines Buddhist-style mindfulness practice with yoga as exercise to provide a means of exercise that is also meditative and useful for reducing stress. Buddhism and Hinduism have since ancient times shared many aspects of philosophy and practice including mindfulness, understanding the suffering caused by an erroneous view of reality, and using concentrated and meditative states to address such suffering.
Judson Alyn Brewer, M.D., Ph.D., is an American psychiatrist, neuroscientist and New York Times best-selling author. He studies the neural mechanisms of mindfulness using standard and real-time fMRI, and has translated research findings into programs to treat addictions. Brewer founded MindSciences, Inc., an app-based digital therapeutic treatment program for anxiety, overeating, and smoking. He is director of research and innovation at Brown University's Mindfulness Center and associate professor in behavioral and social sciences in the Brown School of Public Health, and in psychiatry at Brown's Warren Alpert Medical School.
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Media related to Tamara Levitt at Wikimedia Commons| General | |
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