Mind Sessions

When doing a Mind session, you're entered into an immersive soundscape while Muse monitors your brainwaves using EEG sensors.

The soundscapes include the natural ambiance of sounds such as rain forests, city parks, or gentle rain. While your mind wanders, you'll hear an increase in wind and other noise, cueing you to focus on your session. When you're focused, the weather noise will soften. If you're focused long enough, you'll hear the birds.

These guides can help you learn the art of focused attention training to find calm wherever you are in life.

Learn more about Mind sessions and the data that you get access to after your session has finished.
 

Starting a Mind Session
Saving Mind Biofeedback Experiences
Understanding your session results
Muse and EEG

 

Starting a Mind Session

To find and start a Mind session:

1. Open your Muse app and sign in to your Muse account.

2. Tap the Train tab.

3. Tap the Mind button in the Biofeedback Soundscapes section of the Train tab.

4. Tap one of the soundscapes to download or play the content.

5. Select a session duration and tap the Next button.

6. Connect your Muse by Bluetooth (if not connected already) and tap the Start Session button.
    

 

Saving Mind Biofeedback Experiences

To save or pin Mind Biofeedback experiences to your Today screen for quick and easy access:

1. Find and open the Mind Biofeedback experience.

2. Under the description, tap the Pin button to pin it to your Today screen.

3. Done! It will now be pinned to the top of the Today screen, ready for the next time you open the Muse app!
    

When you pin Muse Biofeedback experiences (Training or Sleep), the Today screen shows the last completed session type (for example - Mind: Beach) so you can quickly return to your favourites.


To remove or unpin Mind Biofeedback experiences from the Today screen:

1. Find the Mind Biofeedback experience.

2. Tap the arrow or the Continue button to go to the Mind Biofeedback screen.

3. Under the description, tap the Unpin button to remove it from your Today screen.
    

 

Understanding your session results

Your Mind Biofeedback session results give you a snapshot of your brain activity during your session.
 

Mind session graph

After each session, the Mind graph shows the ebb and flow of your level of focused attention, represented in three states:

• Active (distracted): Time spent with a wandering mind and your attention fluctuating.

• Neutral: This is your natural resting state. Your attention isn't fluctuating, but you aren't deeply focused either.

• Calm (focused): This is time in a deep restful focus when you're concentrating on your breath.
   

Tap the Calm %, to compare your recent performance to your average over the last few sessions to help uncover patterns, progress, or areas that might require more attention. Your percentage of calm is a key metric, indicating the portion of your session spent in a state of focused calm.

For more information, see our suggestions on how to improve your Mind Biofeedback session scores.

Zoom in on your data for a closer look.

• Zoom in or out by spreading or pinching two fingers on the chart.

• While zoomed in, swipe left or right to scan through your graph.
   

Mind Biofeedback stats

Another way to understand how your Mind behaved during your session is to look at your stats.

These are displayed on the session graph or can be accessed in the Stats section of your session data page:

• Birds: These are awarded when your mind has settled into a calm state for an extended period of time. This represents your ability to maintain a focused and tranquil mental state, indicative of an effective focus on your breath.

• Recoveries: Represented as stars on your graph, they signify times when your mind transitions from an active state to calm. These transitions mark the moments you've successfully noticed your distractions and regained your focus.

• Muse Points: You're awarded points for every second spent in the neutral and calm states. You receive 1 point per second in neutral and 3 points per second in calm.
   

Other data

• You also see graphs for Heart, Stillness, and Brainwave Powerbands data after each session. This can show you how your heart rate and stillness are impacted by a busy or calm mind. For more information, see our Brainwaves Powerbands article.

• If you have a premium subscription, you'll see data for your cognitive performance. This data can help you identify trends in your cognitive performance over time, allowing you to make proactive lifestyle choices focused on your brain health. For more information, see our Cognitive Performance and Alpha Peak article.

• You can gain Awards for key milestones. Earned a few birds for the first time? Maybe you’ll get the Birds of Eden Award!

• If you added notes after your session, you can review your feelings, patterns, and insights in the Journal section of the screen.
  
   

Muse and EEG

Muse is designed to help you learn to train your focus, meditation, and form the habit of a regular and rewarding practice. Muse senses your brainwaves (EEG) in order to measure your ability to place your focus on the breath, to keep it there, and gently reminds you to regain focus when your mind begins to wander.

At Muse, we’ve spent years doing intensive research on higher-order combinations of primary, secondary, and tertiary characteristics of raw EEG data and how they interact with focused-attention training. Your brain is constantly generating electrical signals when you’re thinking, sleeping, or even relaxing. These signals can be detected by the Muse EEG sensors.

• Gamma: Hyper brain activity, great for learning

• Beta: Actively thinking or problem-solving

• Alpha: Relaxed and calm

• Theta: Sleep, deep relaxation, and visualization

• Delta: Deeply asleep/not dreaming
   

Through a proprietary algorithm, Muse uses a unique and complex combination of the brainwaves in order to provide the results for calm, active, and neutral states. Muse helps by interpreting them beyond isolated bands, so that you can understand and respond to your brain's activity patterns without needing a degree in neuroscience.

Our Muse and EEG article provides more information on how they work together.

If you or your organization is interested in research and development with Muse, view our Muse Software Development Kit (SDK) FAQs.