Wearable Tech To Improve Meditation: MUSE - The Brain-Sensing Headband
Life gets busy.
We all have so many things to do, so many places to be - and more and more people are suffering under the constant pressure.
Meditation has been a spiritual practice and a tool for a humanity for thousands of years - no matter the country or religion.
It is something that people practice until today - to escape their busy lives and calm the mind.
In our current age of technology, it comes to no surprise that there are now even gadgets for meditation - something that might seem quite contradictory at first.
But actually, this headband senses your personal brainwaves and state of mind, to give you real-time feedback and improve your meditation.
This is MUSE - the 'brain-sensing' headband!
What is the MUSE headband ?
Muse is an electronic headband that measures your brainwaves.
It is specifically used to measure what's going on in your brain, and to enable a calm state of mind, ideal for meditation.
Muse works by pairing it with the Smartphone App - there, you will be able to choose between different soothing sounds and other settings for your optimum meditation experience.
The headband has 7 sensors which reads delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma waves, with up to 5 hours of battery life.
"Muse is the first tool in the world that can give you accurate, real-time feedback on what’s happening in your brain when you meditate. It provides motivational challenges and rewards to encourage you to build a regular practice.”
Meditating with MUSE
One of the main purposes of the Muse headband is to help people get into Meditation.
Meditation has been scientifically proven to make fight stress, anxiety and depression, and help people become more calm, focused and happy.
This is how it works:
You connect the headband to the smartphone app and calibrate the brain signals.
Afterwards, you can choose between different nature themes (for example beach or rain), and select a meditation session varying from 3 to 20 minutes in length.
Then, the meditation starts.
Muse translates your brain signals into sounds, so that you receive an instant feedback on your meditation progress.
At first, when your mind is active, you will hear winds blowing. The more you calm down, the more the winds will settle as well. Over time, you will be able to keep this up longer and longer, and bird sounds will appear - this means that your mind has reached the calm state.
After you've finished your meditation, you can look at complex statistics within the app.
Depending on your state of mind during the meditation, you will be awarded points: 1 point for every second that your brain is in a neutral state and 3 points for every second that your mind is calm. Once you've reached 5,000 points, you will unlock more statistics like “timeline view” and “insights about you” (which tells you more details about your own meditation behaviour, for example what time of the day your sessions are calmer or when you “earn more birds”).
Results / Reviews
I don't personally own the Muse headband (yet - I actually own a similar device that reads brainwaves, but I will share a post about that in the future!) but still, I was intrigued to know how people experienced it.
Most feedback seems to be very positive - the brain signals are accurate, the concept helps set a routine and the instant feedback improves your meditation practice.
Muse gives users an insight into their brain activity that they've never experienced before, and therefore provides a tool to directly impact your own mood.
I’ve been using the Muse for about a month and it is definitely working. I can achieve a relaxed, meditative state much quicker and achieve 60-70% calm, whereas when I started it was around 20%.
Better than expected. I thought I knew how to meditate. Now I am learning and seeing the results. Very pleased with the device!
Meditation has helped me better protect myself from mental noise and chatter. Increased self awareness has brought a much needed perspective and has enhanced strategic decision-making ten-fold. I can better see the cascading effects of each thought, and decision. My creativity has skyrocketed. My ideas are better, and they come more frequently. My mental output and stamina have also increased. Not to mention, my confidence is stronger, and more stable — less prone to breaking from obstacle or failure. (After 40 days of meditating with Muse)
The Muse, formerly an Indiegogo campaign, costs $299 — not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, although that’s still $50 below the bottom-end Apple Watch. But what you get for that money could pay for itself in therapy sessions and mindfulness classes… And that’s the beauty of the Muse – it operates in that space in your life taken up by smartphones, couches and Candy Crush. (Mashable)
All in all, MUSE seems to be an effective way to calm your own mind and a helpful tool for anyone looking to improve their meditation practice.
I think it's amazing to see how technology is improving every sector of our lives, and how it can even be used to support your mental well-being!
© Sirwinchester
Thanks for sharing.
Would be fun to play around with this little gadget just to get some readings. I've always been curious about what kind of waves my own brain is producing throughout the day and under certain stimuli.
sound good technology for meditation
We have two of them and use them as remedial monitors for brainwave levels of a number of our clients while they are under the Lucid Light.
Plus, we also use it for the purposes it was intended to be used for.
Thanks for the post. Upvoted.
Very helpful post..Thank you @sirwinchester
I am really excited to know that these headbands can really calm down your brainwaves to help meditation. Although I saw some headbands that are far cheaper than this one.
I dont know if it is the right way to use technologie to come back to yourself.
@sirwinchester. Very interesting information. Thanks for sharing. I want one! upvoted and follow.
Have a nice new day!
Wow, never heard of such a device before, it definitely is an intriguing concept. It does seem to be a little contradictory though (as you've mentioned before), since meditation should add more simplicity to your life and strives to get your focus off all the technical gadgets we are constantly connected with. BUT I believe that such gadgets can be a great support for many meditation beginners that need the little extra motivation through tracking their process and measuring any developments in their meditation practice. Thanks for the great introduction to this tool!
very good and intersting information thank you for sharing.
Interesting post, interesting product. Thanks for sharing. Have a great day my friend :D