The world we live in has become quite hectic. What if you could help calm and control you mind with a unique tool that might help you to explore and gain some of the Jedi like mind control? The muse headband does just that. When I went to CES this year, the Muse headband from Toronto based company InteraXon, was something quite unique on display among the fitbit clones and endless drones available. I was able to get a Muse headband to use from them.
InteraXon created a brain fitness tool called the Muse headband. The muse headband measures brain signals, much like how a heart rate monitor senses your heartbeat. This simple thin band rests on your head and syncs up with an Android or iPhone smart app, and helps you learn to calm your brain and meditate. The Muse headband is an Electroencephalography (EEG), personal, at home monitor. EEG is what clinic and hospitals have used for years to monitor the small electronic signals that your brain produces. The Muse headband is a smaller, at home version of those devices, that retails for 299$. Their first app is called Calm, and it is available for free from your phone app store of choice. You are then able to work on focusing and calming your brain waves while the Calm app senses what’s going on with your brain.
How Does The Muse Headband Work?
A little more details in how the Muse Headband works and a Muse headband Review! Open the app and place the band across your forehead. Everyone’s head is different sized and shaped so it can take a few tries. The app has a colorful login that helps you make sure it’s measuring your brain signals properly. It takes a few minutes to get it, but future sessions will be done with ease. You will then take a moment to calibrate it by thinking of many random list of objects as you can, like fruits, dessert, or country names. There is an easy voiced guided next few steps that allow you to relax and start focusing on your breathing. 3 minutes is the initial start time. You will hear some beach waves. If your mind wanders, you will start to hear stormy wind and waves. Take a moment to refocus. It’s harder than you think. Kind of like that scene in Ghostbusters, where they are not supposed to think of anything but the Marshmallow man just “pops in there”. You too will experience many things just “popping in there”.( Including for me that staypuft Scene)If you keep your mind nice and calm, you get rewarded with some lovely tweeting birds. This also usually startles me into thinking I’m doing an awesome calm job, and then there go the calm “no thoughts”.
I’ve let various friends and family try this out, including young children and older relatives. All could fit into the muse headband with some adjusting, and all of them enjoyed the experience. There is a simple guest mode available in the app for this purposes or a quick free email registration to get their own tracking. The instructions can also be shut off, which is a nice feature and saves time once you have the basics down. You can also try out meditation for up to 20 mins.
The app will then total you minutes of calm, neutral and active thinking and will tell and tracks your score. The app tells you exactly how much your mind is improving over sessions. I improved after each session and honestly felt it easier to calm my mind each time. There is also some gamification available with a few things to unlock like extra features and badges, like completing a certain number of days in a row or getting more birds.
Muse Headband API
Muse is working on opening their API to allow others access to all the awesome stats that muse records and this great advancement in home brain information. They have also recently launched a brand new app, currently only available for Apple, that is a complete meditation update .I am really interested to see what other apps get created and what is developed for Muse in the future.
If you have wanted a technology tool that can help you with calming your mind, and your meditation techniques, this is it. The price tag of $299 is not too steep for the benefit you will get out of relaxing and focusing your mind. I fully recommend getting one if you want to see what happens inside your brain. And Perhaps someday soon Jedi mind tricks will be a reality we can all use. 🙂
I was provided a Muse headband to review. Opinions are my own.
Everywhere I look the Muse headband is $299. Where can it be bought for $199?
Thanks!
That was a solid 2 times typo.. corrected to $299. Thank you!