(Getty Images)
Meditation’s kind of like sashimi: You’re either into it, or you’re not. And while I’ve written plenty about why you should take up the practice, the fact remains that meditation is tough—it takes persistence and a level of commitment to get to a place where you actually enjoy and look forward to meditating every day. It took me at least a month of daily practice for it to stop feeling like a chore; for the first week I had no idea whether I was doing it right, and it wasn’t until four or five weeks in that I started seeing benefits.
However, there’s a new focused-attention meditation program and clever headset product that makes the whole learning-to-meditate thing a whole lot easier: It’s called Muse, and it’s a total game-changer.
If you’re following STYLECASTER on Snapchat, you would have seen me flipping out on the weekend over the device. I stumbled upon it at a fitness entrepreneurship event, FounderMade, in New York, tried it for 20 minutes, and immediately lost all chill. Here’s why: The Muse headset, which has been around for more than a year, has actual sensors built in that track your brain activity while you meditate, and the company has just launched a 10-session meditation program to help guide newbies into the practice. The device itself sits comfortably around your forehead, like a headband, and then loops around your ears, and the hardware is slim, lightweight, black, and nowhere near as offensive-looking as it sounds, take a peek:
(Muse)
For my demo, I took a seat while Muse’s Head of Product Tracy Rosenthal-Newsom placed the headband flush across my head. “It’s important the sensors have contact with your skin. We use EEG—or electroencephalogram—to detect electrical activity in your brain,” she explained while rearranging the band. Once all seven brain sensors had contact across my head, the app lit up letting us know we were ready to go.
“We’ve got seven sensors on the headband; there are two on the ears, and there are five up on the forehead,” Rosenthal-Newsom explained, while handing me a set of headphones. The app uses music to guide your meditation, based upon real-time feedback being sent from the brain scanners. There’s no intervention—the sensors just receive information—so it’s totally safe. I was told that the music would change every time my mind wandered to help guide me back to my breath (clever!) and that afterward I would receive feedback via the app from my session.
Skeptical, but curious, I closed my eyes and tried to calm my mind. Admittedly, the idea of being hyperfocused on the quality of your meditation seems kind of counterintuitive, but I was excited to check it out regardless.
The app counted me in and gave a spiel on what to expect, and I was left with some relaxing rainforesty music and instructions to focus on my breath—however, as I’m comfortable with mantra meditation, I used that instead. Admittedly, the noise of the convention around me was quite distracting, so my mind wandered off my mantra a little more regularly than usual, but each time I heard the sound of storm rolling in and light thunder, which gently reminded me to return to my mantra—much more quickly than I would have if I was meditating without the sensors and app. The music softened and was barely audible when my mind was still.
Afterward, a report popped up on the phone screen outlining some stats about my session—jut like I’d get from my regular fitness trackers at the gym. It shows at which points my mind was active, neutral, and calm. Here’s an example of a report after a quick three-minute trial:
As someone who’s been meditating religiously for a good year and a half, the music was, at times, a little distracting, and while the feedback was really interesting, it just plummeted me straight back into my own overanalytical head, which is the very mind-set I’m working to avoid after practicing. You can customize the experience, and turn off the some of the sounds, which might make this a little more friendly for some intermediate meditators. Even so, I really love the idea of this app, and the 10-session program and feedback headset are a brilliant way for meditation rookies to get started and avoid the inevitable “Am I doing this right?” question every beginner asks themselves.
“We have a lot of habit-forming frameworks that are happening inside the the application,” Rosenthal-Newsom explained, referencing the variety of focused-attention meditation activities available in the app, and gamification elements like challenges and milestones.
You buy the muse headband for $299 online with a 60-day guarantee, and the app is available to download for free. In the meantime, here’s a snap of me completely losing my shit over Muse on the weekend—you’ve got to try it, guys.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BBLDe0qugRZ/?taken-by=jasminegarnsworthy