How to use the Muse 2 headband: Hints, tricks, tips and advice
Can a brain-sensing headband help you begin meditating, track your progress and advance in your journey?
If you’re considering buying the Muse 2 and are looking for an honest review of it, please visit this article I recently wrote.
How to use the Muse headband: Hints, tricks, tips and advice
Throughout these several weeks, I have devised several ways to improve my experience with the Muse meditation headband:
1. Reboot your phone before opening Muse and starting your meditation session
My main complaint about the Muse is the instability of the connection of the headband to the phone, followed by the immediate consequence of this: constant and sudden interruptions of your meditation session.
I know that there are all sorts of perfectly reasonable technical justifications for this, starting with the sheer number of devices that the Muse headband can connect to (particularly with Android phones, which can be manufactured by at least ten major brands, all of which tend to change the stock Android operating system) and many other variables. But the fact is: the Muse has a tendency of disconnecting ALL the time.
On my Android phone, I even tried to create a new user to run Muse completely, in order to sandbox it and avoid any undue interaction with other apps. While this seemed to have helped a bit, there’s one thing you should do every time you sit to meditate with your Muse — reboot your phone before
MY HINT: Reboot your phone and don’t start any other apps before you open the Muse app and connect to your Muse headband. This will ensure that your phone has no other apps or processes running in the background (except for the essential ones) that could interfere with the Bluetooth connection and the Muse app, which will hopefully avoid those technical interruptions.
ALTERNATIVE: Use another, dedicated device only for the Muse app. Maybe that tablet you don’t use anymore?
UPDATE: When I upgraded my phone to a new model, most Bluetooth issues went away. As far as I researched, Bluetooth implementation is still a bit flimsy across the board, with Bluetooth component having different stability and issues. So, if you are having trouble with connecting you Muse headband to your device, or if it keeps on disconnecting, consider troubleshooting your device first — or exchanging it altogether!
2. Don’t forget to turn on the “do not disturb” mode
Countless times, I was interrupted in my meditation with a notification. Even if you don’t look at it, the anxiety such a thing can create can derail you from your meditation focus.
MY HINT: Make sure you turn on the “do not disturb” mode (or similar) before you start your meditation session — don’t risk it. On Android, I use Macrodroid to do that automatically (as well as set the volume level) as soon as I open the Muse ap. It works like a charm!
3. Play with the volumes and experiment different soundscapes
After my first sessions with Muse and particularly after the novelty factor wore off, all noises progressively started to be too much — just another distraction. At points, halfway through my meditation, I muted them completely.
MY HINT: Experiment with different volumes and soundscapes to make your experience more enjoyable. It might be that you enjoy a lower or softer soundscape (background noise), or that you prefer to have the neurofeedback volume up.
Personally, nowadays I don’t use any sort of neurofeedback at all: my soundscape, weather feedback and birds are all muted; all I keep on is the alerts, for when the Bluetooth connection is lost or when the signal quality drops. Yes, you read it correctly: I actually only use Muse for recording my brain signals during meditation, and also to keep all my meditation records in one app/ecosystem. I no longer use it for active neurofeedback, only as a passive EEG. It works for me.
4. Ditch the headphones
The Muse headband and app are designed to be used with headphones. I found, however, that while this may help you with focused, stable attention, it actually prevents you from developing peripheral awareness. Both are needed for mindfulness, and I quickly realised that by using headphones I was actually causing my progress to slow down.
MY HINT: Ditch the headphones. Personally, I connect my phone to a Bluetooth speaker, just because I have one unused speaker where I meditate, but of course, you could just use your phone’s speakers. With this, I can listen to the sounds around me while practising non-reactivity, instead of putting myself in a sound bubble with the headphones.
5. Try using Breath Meditation as a pre-meditation ritual
I have argued before that a pre-meditation ritual can actually help you improve your meditation:
Breath Meditation on the Muse 2 can be quite nice and productive for this purpose: I started with 5 minutes and slowly worked my way up to 10 minutes.
However, instead of simply breathing, I practice slow, deep breathing (diaphragmatic breathing), which has been proven to bring many other health benefits. Particularly for meditation, it can enhance your posture, increase relaxation and strengthen your intention and motivation:
MY HINT: Do the Breath Meditation for 5–10 minutes, preferably with diaphragmatic breathing, before you actually engage in Mind Meditation with your Muse. It is a brilliant way to kickstart your practice.
6. Try meditating without the Muse sometimes
While meditating with the Muse headband can be fun, particularly if you are only now starting to meditate and/or if you enjoy gamification techniques (such as awards), it’s not your goal to become dependent on any sort of gadget or technology, right? That is actually the opposite of what meditation should do. And the Muse should help your meditation practice, not hinder it!
MY HINT: Try meditating only with the Meditation Timer and no headband, or without any sort of app every once in a while.
