Update Oct 10:
The longer I am using it, the more I like it. I have now done over 100 sessions with it. One effect it had on me is that I am now mediating twice a day with it, while I used to only mediate once a day before. I sit now early in the morning around 8:00 for 15 or 20 minutes, and then around 9:30 in the evening. I sometimes also meditate without it during the day at work, but these two meditations in the morning and the evening have become a well-loved fixture in my life. And because it really helps you to get these Alpha waves going for extended periods, you will actually start craving meditation. I am very grateful to the folks at Muse!
Update on Sep. 2, 2018:
Have been using it for more than two weeks now. In addition to what said below, I want to reiterate what others have remarked on the calibration: If you are really relaxed during calibration, it might be overly sensitive and pick up on every little distraction. If you're fidgety and nervous or just think a lot during calibration, it might end up too generous and not pick up on the smaller distractions. So, it is definitely worth paying attention to the calibration and your respective status, otherwise you may end up with an inadequate calibration.
I have been using the Muse Headband for a bit more than a week now and I am mostly rather enthusiastic about it. There are some issues with it, too, which I will discuss later, as they are actually a blessing in disguise. So, first the unproblematic positives:
First of all, I am highly impressed with the bio-feedback qualities of this device. Using it for meditation is like doing meditation under a magnifying glass: You understand much more precisely when you're in a truly quiet state and when you're getting distracted. It also helps you (due to the feedback) to get very quickly into a quiet state, something I earlier only experienced during silent retreats.
Second, you learn much more precisely to react to distractions. I have had times in meditation where I got distracted and stayed in that distracted state fairly long, as I was missing a "warning system" that would pull me out. With the Muse Headband, you get a pretty quick response to your distraction and after a bit of adjustment, you can actually react immediately, so that you're not even getting into a state of major distraction.
Third, it allows you to distinguish much better between the meditating/observing mind and the thoughts that come up. It really helps you to stay neutral and non-judgemental towards these thoughts and just let them come and go. I have been doing regular (usually daily) meditation for the past 3 years, and did it less regularly before that, so I am fairly experienced. However, while I never had much of a problem getting into a relaxed, calm stat of mind, I often had trouble to remain aware and to distinguish my awareness from the observed thoughts without getting involved in these thoughts and thus getting distracted. The Muse Headband helps in creating awareness of and distance to potentially distracting thoughts, thus effectively preventing you from getting distracted by them.
Finally, I also feel that using this device makes it much more easy to meditate regularly and more than once a day. The combination of the immediate feedback, the reward system, and the documented brainwave output makes it rather attractive to use the device -- yes, we're easy to please creatures :-). In any case, it has (so far) helped me to increase my meditation frequency and duration.
For these three points alone, I feel like my meditation practice has been advanced tremendously in a very short amount of time.
Now for the issues that complicate things:
One issue that other reviewers have brought up, too, is that the device does not always catch distracted thinking. In fact, if you think very concrete, individual thoughts in an otherwise calm state of mind, it will likely interpret these thoughts as concentration, not as distraction, even though these thoughts can be fairly distracting. For instance, if you think "it is going to be interesting how this looks like on the brainwave diagram" during a calm state, it will not react to it. And you can draw out such concrete thoughts without the Muse Headband identifying them as distraction, as long as you stay focused on them and keep your calm state. I guess this has to do with the fact that such thoughts are very specific and concentrated. Some reviewer mentioned that doing puzzles can have this result, too, which is unsurprising because you're concentrating a lot when you're doing a puzzle.
On the other hand, the system is extremely sensitive towards cognitive "background noise," i.e. unfocused daydreaming and drifting of thoughts, as well as emotional reactions or visual imagery (as long as they are not focused, of course). This sensitivity has actually been very valuable for me, because I was not too aware of how much cognitive "background noise" I am producing and how deeply this can interfere with a calm state of mind. I always focused much more on the individual, focused thoughts, which are much easier to identify. So, while the device is not much of a help in catching these individual, focused thoughts, it reliably catches the background noise, which is ultimately much more disruptive, provided you're sufficiently aware of your concrete thoughts.
This means: If you want a device that helps you directly to become aware of your concrete, focused thoughts during meditation, then the Muse Headband is not much of a help, as it won't react to them, unless they are accompanied by less focused background noise (which, by the way, happens usually relatively quickly when you follow those thoughts, as you'll start daydreaming about them!). However, the system is extremely helpful in creating awareness of your background noise and imagery, which often go undetected in "unsupported" meditation sessions.
Moreover, one indirect effect this has is that it not only raises your awareness of cognitive background noise, it also helps in isolating the concrete, focused thoughts from the background noise, so that you will be much more aware of those focused thoughts as distractions. This is, then, how the device can help you indirectly to also control the focused thoughts.
While this may seem a bit complicated and hard to follow, my experience in the actual meditation is that it is very clear and obvious, not least because the device helps to you be more detached from your own thinking that you normally are. Maybe that's not a problem other meditators have and it is only my individual issue. But for me, the Muse Headband has been a real eye-opener and an incredibly helpful device, as it has put my mind under the microscope.
I also want to add that I have absolutely no connection problems or pairing issues. For me, the device has been working just wonderfully.
I do share the concerns of other reviewers that it is not clear from the output you get on the app what type of brainwaves are being recorded, and how the system interprets them. At some point, I might look more deeply into that (and, as others have mentioned, there are apps that help you to get the raw data instead of the interpreted ones). For now, however, I am simply very happy to have a device that supports and improves my meditation practice dramatically. Obviously I will need to see how it plays out in the long run. I will add updates to this review at a later point.
| Brand Name | MUSE |
|---|---|
| Color | White Headband + Case Bundle |
| Style | Modern |
