![]() ![]() The Muse 2 is designed for meditation, and you can use it during the day to relax your mind while meditating. Then, it offers insight into what all of this activity means, helping you meditate or sleep more effectively. You wear the headband, and it uses sensors to track your heart-rate, breathing, and brain activity. Muse is a multi-sensor meditation and sleep device offering real-time feedback based on various biological information. You can also add an annual subscription to your purchase to enhance your experience. Muse provides just enough encouragement to help me meditate regularly, so I can rediscover meditation’s rewards: reduced anxiety and increased focus.Muse is available in multiple models, including the Muse 2 ($250) and Muse S ($400). But showing up with my fellow students on a regular basis to earn a little college credit was also a game. It may seem silly to make meditation a game–gathering points and advancing though levels by doing something as simple as sitting in quiet contemplation. If I let my praise go, the birds come back again. Of course if I start to think, “Right on, now there are birds, good job,” then the birds fade away and the waves pick up again, which is exactly what should happen. If I manage to keep up a long stretch of quiet meditation, the soundscape plays the sound of birds chirping in the distance. Finally, I let go of apologizing to myself, and – reward! - the waves return to gentle lapping at the shore. I let go of my frustration and the waves get even quieter. So Muse creates a calming feedback loop: I recognize the trap, calm down, and the waves get quiet. ![]() If the waves start to pick up, and I berate myself, “Oh, no! I’m thinking about work now? I’m so stupid!” The waves get louder. And stops my self-bully dead in its tracks. This is very effective at keeping me focused. If I get distracted, the waves get louder. ![]() The calmer my mind is, as measured by Muse, the quieter the waves. So I could meditate to the sound of waves. After a brief introduction, I chose a background soundscape. I listen to it through the speaker phone or headphones. It’s connected to my iPhone via Bluetooth. I donned the sensor strip headband that makes me look like a high-tech hippy and monitors my brain activity. I am so bad at this!” This is, obviously, distracting. First I fall for a distraction like adding items to my shopping list or getting a great idea or thinking, “Wow! I am meditating!” But as soon as I realize I fell in a trap, I’m brutal, “Look, I fell for a classic distraction. Muse is somewhere between these two schools.īut neither style keeps me safe from my biggest mental trap: beating myself up. I memorized a short passage and spent thirty minutes a day reciting it silently. (Who isn’t?) There is also passage meditation, which is what I did in class. There’s the “Empty your mind of all thoughts” school, which is hard if you are inundated with stimulation. Now - twenty-something years later – Christina asked me to review a technology designed to turn meditating from obligation to game: Muse: the brain sensing headband. Eventually this knowledge made me so anxious I took a deep breath and let go of meditation. Then I worried about my failure to meditate. But when the class ended, so did meditation. I took a meditation class in college, hoping it would reduce my anxiety. ![]()
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