Do Brain Wave Bands Really Work to Improve Performance?

As a stressed brain emits more waves or signals, due to increased electrical activity, the idea is that along with meditation, headbands can help the user in training to be calmer. And then, in turn, increase your performance.

But are these devices, which doctors use to detect diseases like epilepsy or stroke, really beneficial in helping people reduce stress?

Baumert says he wanted to know after testing a tape called FocusCalm two years ago. “After using it myself, I thought ‘I want to know more about this’,” she says.

So he contacted the company behind the product BrainCo, based in Massachusetts. Given her relevant university education and involvement in weightlifting and winter sports, she was invited to become a part-time, but paid, researcher for a few months in 2020 and again in early 2021.

Baumert is now convinced that the device works. “I was able to visualize and learn how to have better control, and what training I need to do to get to a more relaxed state, while having very high power,” he says.

BrainCo President Max Newlon explains that the band uses an artificial intelligence software algorithm to monitor 1,250 “data points” in a person’s brain wave signals. Connected to a mobile phone app, it rates users on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being the most relaxed state.

Most of the time, the average person apparently hovers around the 50 mark.

“It’s a passive measurement, there’s nothing going into your brain,” says Newlon, who started working on the technology in 2015. “We have people doing different kinds of experiences, like going through time with their families … to learn more about themselves and find out what puts them in that state of calm and focus, ”he explains.

Like exercise that strengthens the body, Newlon says people can learn to relax the brain, and once the skill is learned, it is maintained.

Another headband developer, Canadian company InteraXon, created their product, Muse, in 2014.

It is also designed to help people feel calmer and, in turn, to promote meditation or better sleep.

In addition to measuring brain waves, records a person’s heart rate, respiratory rate and posture. And it comes with an app that plays soothing sounds, like those of a rainforest.

Derek Luke, CEO of InteraXon, says his clients are people who are “trying to solve a problem in their life”, like stress and anxiety, or “trying to proactively improve” on something, like their performance in a certain sport.

It all sounds good, but Dr Naomi Murphy, a British clinical and forensic psychologist, is wary of commercial EEG machines.

The blindfolds encourage people to work to meet middle-brain “standards”, he says. “This can make some people feel over-stimulated or under-stimulated after using them, possibly because their brain does not match the ‘average’ brain,” he adds.

“While some people find the measures useful, many are drawn to ‘neurotechnology’ because they identify with vulnerability, anxiety about its performance and the use of data can exacerbate this,” he warns. .

Meanwhile, Professor Sandra Wachter of the University of Oxford, an expert in artificial intelligence, wonder if the devices of EEGs intended to make people less stressed should be needed.

“Mindfulness training and meditation might be one of the areas where I see very little room for artificial intelligence to improve traditional forms of practice,” he says, citing Buddhist and Hindu methods as higher.

By measuring mindfulness against an average, you miss the point, she says, which is “just to listen to yourself.”

“Plus, there’s no ‘ideal relaxation’ or ‘problematic stress level scores’ because everyone is different,” he says.

However, UK consultant neurologist Dr Steve Allder supports consumer EEG devices, especially when used by athletes.

“Having some mental practice will likely provide a performance advantage,” he says. “And using a tool that provides physiological feedback in practice is likely to improve the depth of an individual’s ‘mind’ control, so ‘neurofeedback’ tools are useful.”

“The holy grail of elite athletes is to constantly access the ‘zone’. This type of practice will increase the chances of that,” he says.

Back in America, Baumert says that while the headbands are very useful, athletes shouldn’t see them as a “magic trick”.

“Take what you learn and put it into practice,” he says.

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