Muse S Review Australia - The Sleep Tracking Headband That Is The Best Way To Meditate According To Science

5 Apr

A guided meditation neuro feedback masterpiece that will track sleep too, Muse S Headband Review

The Sleep Tracking Headband — Muse S Review

Every tried to meditate and been even more frustrated than before you started? Yep, we have too. It’s pretty easy to think you are doing something wrong when you meditate. To be honest, there is no right or wrong way to meditate. So how do you know if you are progressing or achieving anything when you meditate?

What is the best way to meditate? Well, the aim is essentially to catch or observe yourself when you begin to become lost in a story or carried away in a thought stream - to bring yourself back to the present moment. We have found that the most effective way to meditate is using the Muse S Headband and after using the Muse S in Australia for the last 6 months we have an honest review.

“According to the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, humans have approximately 50 thoughts per minute.”

That’s a lot of brain power to be able to bring yourself back out of a rambling mind so many times per minute. But you don’t have to do it on your own in 2021…

…Enter the Muse S.

We review the Muse S Headband Australia as the one of the best ways to meditate. We know our fair share about meditation. We also know when done effectively, meditation can have an enormous impact on recovery and performance, all backed by science of course. We have been tracking our sleep and meditation brainwaves for a little over a month now and it is a game changer.

By now there would be a fair share of Muse S reviews Australia from the plethora of people that have tried and tested the Muse S and other Muse products for themselves. So, let’s break down why it’s so good (with a few areas to improve on), but why you should read this Muse S Review before buying.

Muse S Review 2022

Looking back at 2014 with the first hard plastic version of Muse, to now, with the soft, technologically advanced neurofeedback wearable that is actually a pleasure to use, we can see that Muse has adapted to the market demands and produced something that we biohackers really want! And yes, the S stands for Sleep. At RG we are extremely interested in sleep as one of the crucial foundations of better recovery.

And, as this study mentions, when we are dealing with a “highly complex hierarchical process, consisting of at least several distinct sub-states, many processes, anatomical structures, and biochemical pathways involved, which share substrates, integrate environmental influences and preceding history, and interact in many ways.”, sometimes it is necessary to use good gear to get good sleep.

Understanding and optimizing sleep requires precise tools and reliable data, which is where Muse’s advancements shine. The device not only tracks sleep patterns but also provides insights into how to improve sleep quality. It leverages neurofeedback to help users relax, meditate, and ultimately enhance their sleep cycles. By addressing the multifaceted nature of sleep, Muse helps users achieve a state of rest that supports overall health and well-being, proving to be an indispensable tool in our biohacking toolkit.

**Comparison of cost compared to other popular meditation apps**

Muse S Headband Review

Muse is based around EEG or electroencephalogram. It essentially detect electrical activity in the brain, yes, even when we are in slumber. But it’s what the Muse S does with that information that is the kicker. In this Muse S review we show you how the Muse S cleverly translates your brain activity into audible sounds (a type of your choosing) that give you a real time indication of how busy or peaceful the mind is.

So what?

Well, for the busy mind it is a really useful and potentially relaxing way to let you know when you are on the right track and when you need to slow things down and bring yourself back to the present.

Everyone from athletes to doctors are using the Muse S for performance enhancement, anxiety, cognitive training, sleeplessness and loads of other areas of potential exploit. There are loads of research projects being conducted that involve the Muse which you can find here.

It is worth mentioning here that we recommend reading the product disclosure on their website and a reminder that none of the advice we give on this site is of a medical nature. In our Muse S Australia review we have some important pros and cons to consider before buying a Muse S in Australia.

PROS

Calming, personalised guided meditations
App data is easy to interpret
Real time feedback

CONS

App is data and battery intensive and requires daily charging
Can feel it wearing at night
Expensive (but worth it)

Bottom Line: Meditation is a very subjective experience. When you have had the opportunity to meditate with and then without the Muse S the difference is astounding. The guidance and biofeedback received through sound feedback and data on the app is priceless, particularly for beginners and people who "struggle” to meditate.

Price: Check best price below

Weight: 350 grams

Battery Life: 10 hours

Check Muse S Price

See this short 2 minute Muse explanation

How the Muse S Works

Muse S For Meditation

When testing the Muse S we knew we were later going to share our thoughts with you with an honest Muse S review. To be honest, we were a little sceptical about the comfort levels of wearing something on the head during sleep but after the initial negotiation of the device between which position you sleep, where the pillow sits and how to block out the little green light (from the HR monitor) it became a win.

Much like earlier models, the meditation is guided by sounds and we noticed that it really gives you the chance to synchronise your breath to the sounds. Depending on your subscription, you can have access to up to 500+ guided meditations from renowned teachers. Muse S basically offers courses through the app and allows you to go as deep as you desire into the mind, much like Sam Harris’ Waking Up Meditation App which we also rave about that is free (up to a point)!

Experts use the Muse S for meditation too

There are monthly releases of new meditations so even the most avid users have a regular update of meditations. In saying that, you are also able to create a Library of favoured meditations that you can download and make accessible when you are on the move and potentially offline, all the while tracking your practice and getting that delightful data that we love to track your use.

Couldn’t be much easier. As you can see in the earlier video, the headband slides on, flash up the Muse app on whatever phone you are operating and you select one of the hundreds of choices in guided meditations available (the hardest part of the process). The EEG sensors activate and begin detecting brain activity and movement subsequently changing the sounds that it relays to give you an indication of how you are doing.

Put simply, the more you move the louder your brain activity, the louder the sounds. The less you move around and the quieter the mind, the softer the sounds.

One thing worth mentioning is session time. What we think Muse S does well is it gives you the option to set a session time as short as 3 minutes. There is no optimal time to meditate and it is important to understand that even 3 minutes is contributing positively to your wellbeing. That said, the benefits may be exponential when you can commit your time to taming the monkey mind for say an hour at a time.

Muse S For Sleep Tracking

Our main focus for this Muse S review is to analyse the sleep tracking data, as sleep is the most important foundation of our overall health. To gain insight into our sleep is priceless when considering what works and what doesn’t in terms of overall health and wellness. As we mentioned The Muse S is a soft, sensor-packed headband that wraps partially around the head and pretty much makes you a qualified zen master. It also makes you sleep like a hibernating bear as we found after about 4 weeks of regular sessions.

The elegant teacher that is Muse S, gently speaks and guides you through with sounds as the main form of prompting. What we find absolutely moorish is the report that is generated on the app after your sleep or meditations session.

We love data. What gets measured, gets managed. Essentially, when we combine this data with say, the Go2Sleep Tracker or an Oura Ring, you can get HUGE insights into your sleep and what affects it. We recommend logging other things relating to your daily routine in a sleep journal to get even deeper insight into potential foods, habits, CBD, training routines, supplements etc contribute to a good or bad sleep.

Originally, the Muse targeted meditation as its main practice. Although the new Muse still ticks all the boxes with over 300 meditations on the list to choose from, it now has upgraded sleep tracking capability with its overnight sleep reports only available specifically with the Muse S version. We have seen and tested plenty of other sleep trackers that purely target sleep data and other trackers that target mostly fitness data. As far as we are concerned that it why this device shines - you are capturing two massively important data sets in mindfulness and meditation with the one device.

If this is your first Muse, we recommend spending an initial few minutes to get accustomed to working the device by going through the tutorials. As is mentioned in many other Muse S reviews, it will save you troubleshooting issues with wearability and app usage that we stumbled through at the start. What you will notice is that the app gives you a very accurate picture of how well you have placed the device on your head by way of an indicator of how well each sensor is operating.

The Options For Falling Asleep

Option 1 is very similar to a 10-20 minute guided meditation. The “journeys” are essentially a guided track accompanied by soothing sounds that employ similar biofeedback methods of increasing and decreasing noise depending on your movement, heart rate and head noise. The only difference here is the idea is to get to sleep, so the sound feedback is not so involved it is more a focus on breath and feel.

Particularly if you are sleeping with a partner who may or may not want to hear the soundtrack, we recommend using a set of wireless headphones to listen so there are no wires attached for the whole experience.

Option 2 is a “soundscape”, of which there are about 20 to choose. No voice, just nature sounds that really get you drifty like ocean rythm, or mountain wind - you choose. It goes without saying that the real action begins once you get to sleep. Thats when the tracking begins. The Muse S is busy measuring all of the your slumber data via bluetooth connection to punch out a sleep score out of 100 when you wake.

The only thing worth mentioning about the Muse S is that we initially found it to disrupt sleep position a little. It is no issue for back sleepers but if you are a side sleeper it might take some getting used to.

If you are a back sleeper chances are you should be mouth taping like we speak about in this article.

Conclusion on Muse S Headband

Is the Muse S Headband worth it? It’s a yes from us.

At about $350 plus a $13 monthly subscription it is a wearable meditation device that is worth the financial commitment. We always note that when you commit financially to a device like this it really creates an element of habitual use which is a really important with meditation.

Not only has using this device increased our meditation habit to around 5 times per week on average, we have noticed that an increased focus on mindfulness and quality sleep has indeed created better sleeping habits. There is an element of reward in visually tracking and improving a ‘score’ relating to sleep and meditation which really works well for most people.

In terms of the content included, we all really liked to guided tutorials and found it useful to be able to personalise the meditation soundtrack to whatever most suits you - anything from birds to ocean sounds. I found the ocean sounds a winner, personally.

Wearability can be an issue at first, but like most new things, you get used to it. The device is much softer than the older model but will definitely be noticed around the head in the first few wears for up to a week from experience. After that, the sounds take over and off you go to lala land. So what is the final verdict of our Muse S review? It is a YES from the RG team.