Achieve Relaxation with MUSE Meditation

Stress is hard to avoid in America. With the MUSE S meditation headband, you can achieve some much-needed relaxation and learn to shift your attention.

Have you thought about meditating before?  Globally, 200-500 million people meditate on a regular basis. 

As people become more stressed, the number of people practicing mediation has tripled since 2012.  Why?

Meditation provides a wealth of benefits, like…

• reduction of stress and anxiety
• improves concentration and attention
• improves psychological well-being
• decreases depression
• can help people with addictions
• increases a sense of connectedness and empathy
• can improve your ability to make decisions

If there are so many benefits, why don’t more people meditate?

1.  They think it’s a New Age thing.

Meditation has been around for thousands of years.  It’s definitely not a “new” thing.   More and more people are practicing meditation because they see how it is benefiting their mind and body.

2.  They don’t have the time.

We all have time if we take the time for things that are important to us.  We make the time to eat.  We make the time to send our kids to school.  We make the time to go to the gym or take our kids to sports practice.  We also make time to binge-watch Netflix.

It’s a matter of setting priorities.  And setting up a new habit.  And besides, with the shelter-at-home decrees, we have more time than ever before. 

For peace of mind, meditation might be one escape that becomes a luxury for you!

3.  They can’t keep their mind still enough.

All of us have a busy mind.  That’s the one true aspect of meditation that helps, to settle our minds, giving them a break from our burdens.  It helps you to refocus. 

Meditation helps us gain control over our minds.  It helps us to center our attention on things that make us grow.

Our actions stem from where we focus our minds.  If we focus on negativity, injustice, anger, etc., our actions will eventually follow. 

Focusing on positive things in life will give peace, joy, and freedom. 

Meditation gives you a break from your negative thoughts and recognizes when you have them so you can actively shift your mindset to positive thoughts.

4.  Meditation is boring.

Our world is busy.  We are always doing something.  Even when watching TV or movies, though we zone out a bit, our mind is working, trying to figure out the plot, jokes, characters, etc.

To all of a sudden stop from all activity and clear our minds is difficult.  In essence, you’re just being with yourself.  People often think they are doing meditation wrong or don’t even know how to start in the first place.

With a little bit of education, meditation can be an engaging and peaceful experience.

I have tried meditation throughout the years. I can identify with each of the reasons above.  But as with any new skill, it takes practice.

We’ve all heard about Hollywood stars and sports figures who have it all and yet plummet into a downward spiral of drugs, broken relationships, and vices.

It’s learning to gain control over your mindset that sets you up for success in life – which is happiness based on your inner thoughts, not based on out-worldly success.

Meditation helps you to focus on your attention and where you put it.  Attention put on positive, uplifting, non-stressful thoughts will help you grow in that area of focus.

Muse Meditation

Around the time of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) I became more intrigued about meditation through the use of technology. 

I have tried meditation before but didn’t really know if I was doing it right.  Even with guided meditation, I was unsure.  I didn’t last long as I am not one to stay still for long.

After learning more about MUSE, I decided to give it a try.  I arranged a test unit of MUSE’s newest product, the MUSE S, which has a soft lightweight band, a longer battery life, and accesses all of its sensors to assist with getting to sleep meditation.

The band is very comfortable to wear.  It is soft.  The only thing that is made of hard plastic is the power/lightbox that sits on the soft band on your forehead.  You do not feel it.

After putting the MUSE S headband on, turning it on, and opening the app, you can choose any type of meditation you want.  Choose from …

• Mind meditation
• Heart meditation
• Breath meditation
• Body meditation
• Meditation challenges for the community
• Go-to-Sleep Journeys (MUSE S headbands only)
• Guided mediation courses and collections (extra cost)

MUSE S

The Muse S headband works by connecting it to your phone and MUSE app via Bluetooth.  Place the soft headband around your head and ensure there is little hair between the band and your head.

Once the sensors (EEG brain sensors – 2 on the forehead, 2 behind the ears and 3 reference sensors) are all connected (you will see this visually in the app) you can begin a meditation.  Put on headphones and close your eyes.

There are a ton of different meditations to listen too, dependent upon your goal.  As you focus on your breath and what the meditation tells you to do, the MUSE headband is tracking and deciphering your brain waves.

It measures brain activity, heart rate, breathing, and body movement through a number of sensors for real-time feedback.  At the end of each meditation, you receive a full report on how you did each minute.

The PPG and pulse oximetry breath and heart sensors are in the front and right side of the forehead.  The gyroscope and accelerometer body sensors are behind the ears.

Brain Tweets

But you don’t have to wait until meditation is your done to make changes.  MUSE will translate your brainwaves into the weather to guide your progress. 

If you hear stormy weather, you’re off track.  Birds chirping means you’re doing great.  In the end, the better you do, the more bird chirps you’ll see tracked.  No other tracker gives you real-time feedback like MUSE.

Go-to-Sleep Journeys

Features:

• MUSE uses 7 EEG brain sensors to detect brain activity
• 1 headband can be used with multiple users
• The headband connects wirelessly via Bluetooth 4.2
• The PPG + Pulse Oximetry checks your heart to optimize performance
• The Accelerometer helps you discover how your meditation posture brings you physical relaxation
• The PPG + Gyroscope sensors show you how to use your breath to be calm and diminish stress
• The EEG sensor gives you real Real-time brainwave feedback (EEG) teaches you the art of focus
• Go-to-Sleep Journeys utilize the EEG, PPG, and Accelerometer to give you real-time feedback to support your sleep
• Discover how your meditation posture can bring you physical relaxation.
• Includes a rechargeable battery with up to 10 hours of use
• The app tracks your meditation time, bird tweets, and other data accumulatively for you to see how you’re progressing

Pros:

• Love the real-time feedback you get from the weather and tweets you hear as well as charts and graphs showing how you did each moment
• The MUSE is safe and tested and does not use any kind of electrical stimulation
• Has a rechargeable battery that lasts a long time, 10 hours
• MUSE tracks all your meditations, showing the days you meditated and for how long, which types of meditation you used in the app, how many birds you heard, and trophies or milestones you’ve earned
• The MUSE app has a great variety of meditations to choose from
• Studies show that meditation really does help people with lowering their stress

Cons:

• Sometimes it is hard to adjust the headband correctly so that it syncs with the apps.  Often times hair gets in the way.  This can be frustrating as you can’t start a new session until the headband syncs with the app, to show the headband is placed correctly
• Once you choose a meditation, you need to download it to your app.  Over time, your meditations could take up a good amount of space on your phone
• Is a bit pricey

The MUSE S meditation headband is available from MUSE for $349.99 plus shipping, with the option of adding a 1-year guided meditation package (a $70 savings).

A Mom’s Perspective

Research has shown that meditation helps people stress less and focus more.  If anything, it helps me feel a sense of calm as I focus on taking deeper breaths.

MUSE has also aided me with sleep, giving my brain something else to focus on rather than the stress of the day.

As a person who really enjoys reviewing statistics from fitness and health tech, the MUSE is the perfect tool in helping to feel more comfortable with “doing meditation right.”

MUSE gives you the reassurance that despite how you might feel about a meditation session, the stats show that although your mind may have wandered, you were able to recover and hear birds again.

And you know when you wandered because the weather turns a bit stormy (for some of the sessions). 

Focusing on your breathing again allows you to hear bird tweets.

In order to get the guided meditation, you need to subscribe, it’s typically $100 a year.  But right now, the price is $25, and I’d recommend it.  

Guided meditation explains things like the importance of breathing and not worrying about straying thoughts.  The guide will help you get back on track.

If you’ve meditated before and are just curious in the results, there’s no need to pay for the guidance, unless you’re interested in learning more in areas where you need help.

In these times of uncertainty, having a meditation tool like MUSE is a nice addition to your self-care toolkit.  Whatever we can do to instill calm within our families, we should embrace…for our sake as well as for them!