- Emma Baumert admits that when she first put on the high-tech headband she felt silly.
- As a stressed brain gives off more waves or signals, due to increased electrical activity, the idea is, that, together with meditation, the headbands can help the user train him or herself to be calmer.
- And then in turn boost their performance.
- Ms Baumert says she wanted to find out after trying out a headset called FocusCalm two years ago.
Emma Baumert is an all-rounder athlete, is also a qualified weightlifting coach, and this year gained a masters degree in exercise physiology. She says the FocusCalm headband helps her relax. The headband she now uses is a neurofeedback or EEG device as reported by BBC News.
Headband for greater control
As a stressed brain gives off more waves or signals, due to increased electrical activity, the idea is, that, together with meditation, the headbands can help the user train him or herself to be calmer. And then in turn boost their performance.
Ms Baumert says she was curious after testing out a FocusCalm headset two years ago. “I was like, ‘I want to do more research on this,” she recalls after using it.
As a result, she contacted BrainCo, a Massachusetts-based company that created the product. They invited her to become a part-time, but paid, a researcher for a few months in 2020, and again earlier this year, based on her relevant university studies and engagement in weightlifting and winter sports.
Ms Baumert is now persuaded that the device is functional. “I had to visualise and learn how to have greater control, as well as what training I needed to get into a more relaxed condition while still being able to have extremely high explosive power output,” says the athlete.
AI software
The headband employs an AI (artificial intelligence) software system to monitor 1,250 “data points” in a person’s EEG impulses, according to Max Newlon, president of BrainCo. It then scores them on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being the calmest, using a mobile phone app.
Most of the time the average person hovers around the 50 mark.
Like physical exercise making the body stronger, Mr Newlon says that people can learn to relax their brain and that once the skill is acquired, it sticks.
And it comes with an app that plays soothing sounds, such as that of a rainforest.
Derek Luke, chief executive of InteraXon, says its customers are either “trying to address an issue in their life”, such as stress and anxiety, or “proactively trying to improve” at something, such as their performance in a certain sport.
Meanwhile, Prof Sandra Wachter of Oxford University, a leading artificial intelligence expert, questions whether EEG devices aimed at making people less stressed should ever be needed.
Performance advantage
“Mindfulness training and meditation might be one of the areas where I see very little room that AI can improve traditional ways of practising,” she says, citing Buddhist and Hindu methods as superior.
Measuring one’s mindfulness against an average misses the point, she says which is “to only listen to yourself.”
“Having any mind practice is likely to provide a performance advantage,” says Dr Steve Allder, a UK consultant neurologist
“The holy grail of elite athletes is to consistently access the ‘zone’.”
“Take what you’ve learned, and then just put it right into practice,” she says.
Did you subscribe to our newsletter?
It’s free! Click here to subscribe!
Source: BBC News
