Train Your Brain: Neuroscience, Meditation and the Power of Neurofeedback | Ariel Garten

Summary

Beyond Blind Blaming with Kevin D St.Clergy

Episode: Train Your Brain: Neuroscience, Meditation and the Power of Neurofeedback

Guest: Arielle Garten – Neuroscientist, Entrepreneur, Co-founder of Muse
Date: March 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, Kevin D St.Clergy explores the invisible mindset blocks and habits that high-achievers face with pioneering neuroscientist Arielle Garten. The focus is on neuroscience-backed meditation, the transformative potential of neurofeedback, and how her Muse brain-sensing headband bridges technology and mindfulness. Together, they discuss practical, science-rooted techniques for training the mind, managing stress, improving sleep, and responding to the pressures of modern life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Demystifying Meditation and Muse

• Meditation as Focused Attention:
  • Arielle dispels the myth that meditation is mysterious or mystical. It's simply “a secular practice of focused attention training” that anyone can learn ([00:00], [04:55]).
  • Notably, Muse gives users real-time neurofeedback—cues indicating when the mind wanders—allowing direct, actionable meditation practice ([00:25], [04:55]).
• Arielle’s Motivation & Journey:
  • As a child, Arielle was fascinated by meditation but found it difficult. Her struggles inspired her to co-create Muse so others “would know when you were focused...and how to do it better” ([02:57]).
  • Quote: “I was always fascinated by meditation and wanted desperately to do it and sucked at it.” —Arielle ([02:57])

2. Accessible Mindfulness Through Technology

• Real-World Feedback for Meditation:
  • Muse uses auditory cues—users don’t have to look at a screen—which “sounds like you're listening to the sound of your own mind” ([05:31]).
  • Hundreds of independent studies validate Muse’s impact on meditation, sleep quality, and overall brain health ([05:31]).
• Sleep Improvement:
  • Muse S Athena tracks sleep as accurately as a sleep lab and features a “digital sleeping pill” that guides the brain gently into sleep ([05:54], [07:02]).
  • Quote: “We have interventions that actually help you improve your sleep...It really walks your brain into sleep so that you fall asleep faster.” —Arielle ([05:54])

3. Neuroscience of Stress, Anxiety & Focus

• How Our Brains Deceive Us:
  • The brain’s amygdala is continually scanning for threats, both real and imagined. This vigilance is useful for survival, but in modern life, it often triggers needless stress and rumination ([10:12]).
  • Practicing meditation can “calm our body, calm the physiology, calm the fight or flight response...and then shift your attention elsewhere” ([11:34]).
• Handling Anxiety and Trauma:
  • Muse has showed promise in studies supporting those with PTSD and anxiety by helping users “let go” of persistent, urgent thoughts ([09:10]).
  • Quote: “Anxiety is often a battle or a conversation with your own physiology to say, ‘Hey, it's okay. We don't have to deal with this now.’” —Arielle ([09:10])

4. Breaking Habits & Mindful Response

• Phones as ‘Tiny Distraction Machines’:
  • Arielle and Kevin discuss the addictive nature of smartphones and how leaving the phone outside the bedroom can be “life-changing” for sleep and calm ([14:18]–[15:13]).
  • Quote: “Our minds and bodies are wired in these automatic ways because these habits make it really useful...And so if you can have healthy habits that are automated, that's amazing.” —Arielle ([15:13])
• Mindfulness as Habit Rewiring:
  • Through meditation, one can “sit with sensations” that previously triggered automatic actions, creating a pause—a “breath before you respond”—and the chance to choose a different reaction ([17:48]–[18:37]).
  • Quote: “You can feel the feeling and you don't have to do the action. You can feel the feeling, just let it dissipate and move on.” —Arielle ([17:48])

5. Personal Stories and Aha Moments

• Impact on Daily Life:
  • Arielle shares users’ and her own experiences—such as being more present with her child, and finally being able to focus on a long document without distraction ([19:31]).
  • Quote: “For some people...‘Oh my God, I can actually meditate...’ For others...‘I felt present with [my child]...I haven't felt that in a long time.’” —Arielle ([19:32])
• Relationships and Managing Emotions:
  • Improved attention and emotional regulation led to better relationships and less avoidance, including with her husband ([20:57]).

6. Understanding Muse Technology

• Product Details:
  • Muse 2 focuses on meditation and brain health. Muse S Athena adds advanced sleep tracking, including prefrontal cortex monitoring using fNIRS ([21:17]).
  • Optional subscription service enhances features, enabling cognitive function tracking (e.g., alpha peak frequency as a brain aging biomarker) ([21:17]).
• Scientific Rigor and Skepticism:
  • Arielle recounts the 25-year journey of earning scientific respect and assures listeners of peer-reviewed validation ([24:22]).
  • Quote: “Luckily, we've been able, because we have such a scientific validation, to...prove, like, yep, it really is real. Yep, it really does work.” —Arielle ([26:54])

7. Mindset, Growth and Advice

• Cultivating Growth Mindset:
  • Arielle’s favorite way to invest in herself is through cultivating a mindset open to change and adaptability, not just consuming content ([33:05]).
  • Quote: “My favorite way to invest in myself is both to have this mindset of being able to shift and change and adapt, and to believe that adaptability is my best skill.” —Arielle ([33:05])
• Advice to Her Younger Self:
  • Take risks when young and less encumbered; confidence is key ([29:52]).
  • “You can have the confidence to believe in yourself and what you're doing...take all the opportunity you can while you’re in a place of relative safety.” —Arielle ([29:52])

8. Science and the Heart-Brain Connection

• Clearing Up Myths:
  • Arielle clarifies the science around “brain-heart alignment,” connecting heart rate variability (HRV) with positive emotional states like gratitude ([36:37]).
  • Quote: “[In] a state of gratitude...you have really high HRV. And the state of gratitude...create[s] that state of beautiful sinusoidal rhythm.” ([36:37])
• The Body’s Electrical Symphony:
  • Explains how the body’s electrical signals—EKG/ECG for the heart, EMG for muscles, EEG for the brain—can even be measured a little away from the body ([37:56]).

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps):

• “Our brain is wired to look for things that may be dangerous for us, and often it is looking for the wrong thing because...the amygdala...is constantly scanning for danger.” —Arielle ([10:12])
• “Our cell phones...are tiny little distraction machines that are constantly pulling our attention and we actually have the choice whether we want our attention to be pulled by that thing.” —Arielle ([11:49])
• “Sit with a sensation that used to lead to an action...you don't do it. It rewires.” —Arielle ([18:34])
• “The world is always going to be complex and you can have a choice about how you engage with the content that you're hearing.” —Arielle ([27:52])
• “Adaptability is my best skill.” —Arielle ([33:05])

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–02:57 | Arielle’s backstory, core meditation science, Muse origin | | 04:55–05:31 | How Muse provides feedback, technology explained | | 05:54–07:02 | Sleep science, Muse S Athena, digital sleeping pill | | 09:10–11:34 | Anxiety, PTSD, brain’s deception, practical meditation benefits | | 14:18–15:13 | Phone distraction, sleep improvement hacks, habits discussion | | 17:48–18:37 | How mindfulness rewires reactions and habits | | 19:22–20:57 | Meditation “aha” moments and real-life applications | | 21:17–24:22 | Product features, subscriptions, scientific validation | | 27:52–29:45 | Advice for the overwhelmed, focus and control tips | | 29:52–32:19 | Advice to young entrepreneurs, balancing risk and responsibility | | 33:05–34:24 | Mindset as the key to lifelong personal growth | | 36:37–39:15 | Heart-brain science, gratitude, electrical signals in the body | | 39:26–40:16 | Getting in touch with Arielle, fun stories with famous Muse users |

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Final Takeaways

• Meditation is trainable: Anyone can improve with the right feedback and tools.
• Mindfulness is habit-rewiring: It builds the gap between automatic reaction and intentional response.
• Technology and science can deeply enhance well-being—where facts meet feelings.
• Mindset is the strongest investment: A growth-oriented mindset is a foundation for all learning and change.
• You don’t have to fix everything: Focus on what’s within your control, let the rest go.

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To connect with Arielle Garten or explore Muse:

• Socials: @ChooseMuse
• Website: choosemuse.com

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Summary prepared for listeners who want the science, stories, and actionable insights—without missing a beat.

Transcript

[A]

So meditation at its core can be a very secular practice of focused attention training. And what you're really doing is learning to focus your attention on something neutral. Your mind will of course wander off onto a thought, and when it does, it's your job to notice that your mind has wandered and bring your brain back to this neutral place, like focusing on your breath. What Muse does is it cues you when your mind has wandered onto a thought.

[B]

Today I'm joined by Arielle Garten, a neuroscientist, entrepreneur and innovator in the field of mindfulness and mental health. She's the co founder of Muse, the revolutionary brain sensing headband that helps users develop deeper meditation practices through real time neurofeedback. Ariel's work bridges the gap between neuroscience technology and mindfulness, helping people understand their minds and optimize their mental well being.

[A]

With Muse, and with meditation in general, what you're learning to do is have your mind wander to a thought and to say, hey, my mind wandered to that thought and I can just let it go. It's safe to not think about this thought right now. I really don't need to follow that thought train. I can just bring my attention back to my breath. And as you learn to do that, you train your brain to be at peace.

[B]

Welcome to Beyond Blind Blaming. This is the place where we explore how easily hidden truths can hold us back, trapping us in cycles of frustration and blame, often without even realizing what's truly stopping us. Each week, I'm joined by experts and professionals who share their journey of taking back control of their story, overcoming hidden challenges, and discover how to stop blind blaming from dictating their outcomes. The insights you're about to gain will help you see beyond your current limitations, find the courage to seek new perspectives, and ultimately live a life that's both purposeful and powerful. So if you're ready to break free from blind blaming and discover what's possible, you'll definitely want to listen to my next guest. I'm your host, Kevin St. Clergy. And today I'm joined by Arielle Garten, a neuroscientist, entrepreneur and innovator in the field of mindfulness and mental health. She's the co founder of Muse, the revolutionary brain sensing headband that helps users develop deeper meditation practices through real time neurofeedback. Arielle's work bridges the gap between neuroscience technology and mindfulness, helping people understand their minds and optimize their mental well being. With a background in psychotherapy, neuroscience and business, she's been featured and Major at media outlets and has spoken at TED and global conferences. Ariel, welcome to the show.

[A]

Thank you so much, Kevin. Happy to be here.

[B]

Well, your work combines neuroscience, technology, and mindfulness, which is interesting because I just threw that up on my goal board literally last week. The one thing that I'm missing, just from a spiritual standpoint, was mindfulness. But you seem to have taken a truly unique approach and way to do that. What led you down this path and what inspired you to create Muse?

[A]

So I was always fascinated by meditation and wanted desperately to do it and sucked at it. So when I was young, I remember seeing a poster for a, like a Buddhist retreat locally down the street. I was like 12 years old and I was like, I really want to go to this thing. I just want to sit in a room with people and close my eyes and meditate. You know, it seems like such a phenomenal thing to do, but I was too young to go to that retreat, and I was too young to really understand what the process of meditation is. Now I've taught my 9 year old to meditate, and nobody's too young, but back then, I'm 46 now. You know, there were not a lot of roadmaps for young people, and I went on to school to study neuroscience. I became trained as a psychotherapist, and I began teaching people to meditate, but really was not successful at doing it myself. Still, even once I became a psychotherapist and I began collaborating with a professor at the University of Toronto who had an early brain computer interface system, so an EEG device that was able to translate your brain activity into state states of focus, states of relaxation. And from there, we began to take that technology and use it to help guide your mental state, to help teach you to focus and relax. And over time, it became very clear that we could use this technology to solve the problem that I had, which was to teach people to meditate. And so we developed Muse as a tool that would give you real time feedback on your brain state so that you'd know when you were focused, you would know when your mind was wandering, and it would really guide you into the practice and teach you when you were doing it and how to do it better.

[B]

I love it. Well, you bring up something that's important, and I think it's just. And tell me if I'm wrong, but many people think of meditation as something mystical or difficult to master or something they don't really need. How does Muse make meditation more accessible and effective, you think so?

[A]

Meditation, at its core can Be a very secular practice of focused attention training. And what you're really doing is learning to focus your attention on something neutral. Your mind will of course, wander off onto a thought, and when it does, it's your job to notice that your mind has wandered and bring your brain back to this neutral place, like focusing on your breath. What MUSE does is it cues you when your mind has wandered onto a thought. And so very quickly you're cued, oh, your mind is wandering. Bring it back. And you're reinforced with audio cues to bring your attention back to your breath.

[B]

So when you're neat so you don't have to stare at a screen, you're

[A]

not staring at a screen, you're just listening to it. And it really sounds like you're listening to the sound of your own mind. And with muse, we've done by now hundreds and hundreds of studies with third party groups demonstrating the power of using MUSE to improve your brain health, your meditation, your sleep, and improve quality of life.

[B]

Talk to me about how it improves your sleep.

[A]

Aha. So we have several different devices. The first one, Muse 2, trains your brain and helps with meditation and overall brain health. And we have a new device, the Muse S Athena, and it's actually able to track your sleep as effectively as a sleep lab. So there are lots of sleep researchers from Stanford, from University of Ottawa, Harvard, et cetera, et cetera, major institutions that use MUSE actually as a sleep tracker for their studies. So they'll send it home. Some people sleep with the MUSE device and it will show the researcher what their brain was doing during sleep. And we offer the same features to everybody. So anyone can buy a MUSE device, they can track their sleep as effectively as a sleep lab. And then we have interventions that actually help you improve your sleep. So we have something called the digital sleeping pill that tracks your brain as it goes from wakefulness to sleep and gives you beautiful guided audio that's designed in such a way to really walk your brain into sleep so that you fall asleep faster. And if you wake up in the middle of night, you fall back asleep.

[B]

Well, I love that because that's my next big obstacle that I'm overcoming is sleep. I've lost a bunch of weight still only sleeping six to eight hours a day. And I. Or six to eight hours a night, but I get up a couple times during the night still. So I'll definitely be in touch about the sleep thing because it's the one thing my trainer says it's last on our list. Like, look, we got your nutrition down you're working out consistently. You're walking 15,500 steps a day. You're just still not sleeping well.

[A]

Do you have a sense of why that is?

[B]

A couple things. First of all, I'm in the middle of a book launch, so I think stress is not helping. Two, I'm pretty. I have a lot going on because I own two companies. They're both scaling great, we're putting together amazing teams. A lot of it's stress, but like I said, I put mindfulness up there. And I meant meditation on the dream board, because I just haven't done it. I don't think I'm calming down enough before I go to bed.

[A]

Yeah, so one of the big reasons that people don't sleep well, actually the first one is caffeine. So you really want to stop caffeine. Afternoon, 12 o'. Clock. Because caffeine stays in your system for six to eight hours is the half life. So if you have a cup of coffee and you fall asleep, it might wake you back up in the middle of the night because you're still not sleeping deeply enough. So blind blaming it might actually be caffeine's fault. Could be. The next big thing, really, is dealing with your mind and your mind's desire to stay active during sleep. As in, you think you need to be thinking about your problems, but you really don't. So with MUSE and with meditation in general, what you're learning to do is have your mind wander to a thought and to say, hey, my mind wandered to that thought and I can just let it go. It's safe to not think about this thought right now. I really don't need to follow that thought train. I can just bring my attention back to my breath. And as you learn to do that, you train your brain to be at peace. And you train your brain to not have to constantly race after every problem at every moment, because it's really counterproductive for your brain to do that when you're trying to sleep.

[B]

Well, this sounds like it's something that could help with trauma anxiety. Am I mistaken?

[A]

Yeah. So there have been a number of studies with MUSE used in the context of ptsd. For example, MUSE can be very helpful for those with anxious thoughts, because in the case of anxiety, there's often the sensation that you know things are critically important or at risk, and it gives you this huge rush in your body, the sensation that, like, oh, my God, I gotta be doing this thing now. When in reality, you don't. And so anxiety is often, you know, a battle Or a conversation with your own physiology to say, hey, it's okay. We don't have to deal with this now. Hey, it's okay. I know it feels really urgent, but actually, that's not where the real problem is. You know, actually, that's not what we need to be focusing right on right now. Actually, we can just let all that go and just sleep. It's safe to sleep right now.

[B]

Well, that goes into the blind blaming stuff, so. Well, how do you think our brains deceive us when it comes to stress, anxiety, or focus, which is a big problem for a lot of people, Especially since I see a lot of people. They're precious, never far away from them, even when they go to bed.

[A]

Yep. So our brain is wired to look for things that may be dangerous for us, and often it is looking for the wrong thing because it is constantly. Your amygdala, the part of your brain responsible for your fight or flight, is constantly scanning for danger. And it can be real dangers, like, you know, real fires in front of you or perceived dangers, imaginary fires, imaginary problems. And so when we encounter something that our brain feels might be threatening, it generates thoughts about that thing, and it continues to bring those thoughts to the fore over and over and over again, saying, hey, don't forget about this potential problem. Hey, don't forget about it. Which is really useful when it's a real problem and really unhelpful when it's something that's not high in our priority list. When it's you being embarrassed that, oh, no, I have a stain in my pants. Oh, no, I have a stain in my pants. Oh, no, I have a stain in my pants. Like, nobody else notices her pants. Nobody else cares. So what we are able to do with skills like meditation is to notice what our brain is doing and then ask our brain to make a different choice. Calm our body, calm the physiology, calm the, you know, fight or flight response that's going on that is reinforcing our thoughts, and calm those thoughts so that they don't have to reinforce the fight or flight response and then shift your attention elsewhere.

[B]

I love that. Well, it sounds like you've worked with neuroscientific research. You've done a lot of mental health stuff for years. What are some of the biggest misconceptions or myths that people have about how the brain works, or especially when it comes to, like, mindfulness and meditation?

[A]

So in the context of mindfulness and meditation, the biggest misconception that people have is that your brain is just supposed to go quiet and it never does. And so if you're sitting there trying to meditate and getting frustrated because your brain's not shutting off, don't worry about it. You know, none of our brains shut off. That wouldn't be a good thing. Our brain is always going to be generating some amount of discourse and dialogue. Your role as a meditator is to notice what your brain is doing and encourage it to make a different choice and to say, hey, I don't need to get stuck on this thought. I don't need to keep thinking about the fight I had with my boyfriend or whatever it is. I can let that go and then bring my attention elsewhere. You know, I can let that go and then choose where I want my attention to be. And you mentioned cell phones before. You know, you held up your cell phone to the screen and those are mechanisms of distraction. You know, they are tiny little distraction machines that are constantly pulling our attention and we actually have the choice whether we want our attention to be pulled by that thing. I just got a ding from Signal before this because, you know, the 12th messaging app I have on my phone and it's got the loudest ding. So every time it dings, it really pulls my attention. I have to fix that. And you know, then there's that moment of do I check it? Is this important? And my body brain is like screaming, check it, check it, check it. It might be important, you know, check it. There was a notification that was loud. And I know it's just a group of my friends, you know, getting together next Thursday. Do I need to check that now? No, I want to be focused on the interview in front of me, the people I'm talking to, all these things. And it becomes very difficult in this day and age to retrain yourself to really notice what's important and overcome your internal urges towards those things that you know are not important, but your physiology and your brain is set up to believe it did. It dinged loudly, you know, that's a signal to your brain of importance. And you have to come in and say, nope, actually it's not. Nope, actually it's not.

[B]

Well, it sounds very similar to some of the stuff that James Clear teaches in his Atomic Habits book. Right?

[A]

Yeah. So I'm actually not familiar specifically with his Atomic Habits.

[B]

That's his book. If you haven't read it, highly recommend it. One of my all time favorite books, Atomic Habits Next is, and I think it applies to some of the stuff that you do. The Next is called how to Change, where she talks about doing some different things, too. But he just talks a lot about habits. And I'm sure you've read the Power of Habit. Have you read that one?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And we have a signal that cues us to do something else, and that's. Then it becomes just automated. And I think that. I don't think people realize how much they look at their phones every day. And I don't think people realize how much they look at it at night before they go to bed. And a recent. We have these beyond blind blaming challenges that we do. And people come spend five days with me about an hour at a time. And we just kind of go through the framework. And one of my suggestions is always try to leave your cell phone by your treadmill before you go to bed. And then I know it's stressful to leave your phone in another room completely in your home where it's not there at night. But I've had five people do it the last time, and all five have come to me saying, I just want you to know that that one little hack changed my life. Because I'm sleeping better. I'm not stressed out when I wake up. I'm not waking up in the night because my phone is dinging. But I just wonder if the phone keeps people up where they can't focus before they go to bed.

[A]

And you mentioned that sense of anxiety that one feels when your phone is in the other room. And as you say it, I can feel that anxiety. You know, it's the anxiety of, like, oh, I'm supposed to pay attention to this thing. It's not here. It's my, you know, safety line. What if somebody calls me and it's important? What if my mom needs me? What if, what if, what if? And as humans, we're so used to having sensations in our body and then acting on those sensations. You know, I have the desire to have a cookie. I imagine the cookie. It magically makes my feet start walking towards the cookie jar and my hands start going in. It's just these are the automatic connections in our brain, and our minds and bodies are wired in these automatic ways because these habits make it really useful. You know, habits automate your life. And so if you can have healthy habits that are automated, that's amazing. If you have unhealthy habits that are automated like most of us do, some of it is not the most helpful. And it's through something like a meditation practice that you're able to sit with a sensation that used to lead to a reaction. So if you're somebody who has add. You might, you know, sit for a minute to try to like, write, write a document. I'm talking to somebody with add. You sit for a minute trying to write a document, and then you don't really know what to write. And then this feeling, anxiety arises and you're just like, I gotta go somewhere else. And you just click away, just move away from it. Or you are asked to sit without your cell phone and the sense of anxiety arises and you just need to go to it. Or it dings and it's like, sense of anxiety. I need to respond to the ding. And what you learn is in meditation is that you can sit with these sensations. They can arise, and then you can do nothing. You cannot follow them. So, you know, you might be sitting there in meditation and the desire to run away arises, and your job is to just sit there and not run. And you watch the sensation of running arise. You, you watch the feeling get more intense, but you don't do it. And as you don't follow the automated sensation, as you don't follow the automated pathway in your brain body, then it starts to rewire. Then instead of feeling, go, it's now feeling. It's okay, stop, chill. And that feeling begins to dissipate. So you can rewire your habits. Your habit to go to the cookie jar, your habit to answer every bing ding on your phone, your habit to run away as soon as writing something gets hard or complicated. You can rewire each of these habits by knowing that the internal sensation that you have that drives you towards that habit can be rewired. That you can feel the feeling and you don't have to do the action. You can feel the feeling, just let it dissipate and move on.

[B]

And so this sounds like why they always say that you have to practice mindfulness. Is that right? Am I hearing you correctly?

[A]

Yeah. You sit and you do this thing over and over and over again. You sit, you watch your thoughts, you watch the feelings that come up and you don't follow them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you don't do the thing. It's like it's a very non action. And the idea of non action sounds very fun, funny the first time you hear it, but you're like, yeah, you're right. You know, my body wants to do these actions, my mind wants to have these thoughts, my emotions want to go all these places, my legs and arms want to follow them. And it's like, nope, you just don't. And then when you don't, you start to have control and mastery over your own automated Processes.

[B]

So let me say I wrote this down. Route. You sit with a sensation that used to lead to an action. Did I write that back? Did I write that correctly?

[A]

And when you just keep sitting there,

[B]

you don't do it.

[A]

Rewires. And, you know, stimulus is no longer tied to response, which is why you sometimes hear people say, when you meditate, it feels like you have a breath before you respond. You know, it used to be, kid annoys you, you yell. Now it's kid annoys you. And you just have this little beat. You have this little moment of pause before you respond where you can now choose, do I yell or do I do something different? Because it's breaking the stimulus response chain.

[B]

See, now, what I think you've done on the show is you've turned mindfulness into a meaning and something that is doable. So thank you for that.

[A]

Oh, my pleasure.

[B]

Well, in your experience, what's the biggest aha moment people have when they start using Muse or they begin a serious meditation practice, and they get serious about that and make it a priority.

[A]

Wow. So there are now over half a million people around the world who have started or deepened their meditation practice with Muse, some of them who've used it for years on end.

[B]

So.

[A]

So I've heard a lot of stories about the deepening in the aha moments. For some people, the aha moment is. The first one is like, oh, my God, I can actually meditate. Like, I tried this so many times, and it was not successful. And now I can meditate. I get it. For other people, the aha moment is the sense of presence. So, you know, I've had people say, like, oh, I was sitting with my kid in my lap, and I felt present with her. And I haven't felt that in a long time because, you know, my mind is wandering. I'm thinking about the grocery list. I'm. I'm doing these things. For me, a big aha moment was the document story that I shared. One day, I was writing a long format document, and like, 45 minutes later, I was finished it. And in the past, every little thing around me would have distracted me. It's like, oh, I'm needed here, Bell there, distract myself. Like, avoid, avoid, avoid. And after a few weeks, it was very, very early on. After a few weeks of using these, I. Instead of avoiding and distracting and pulling, just every moment, my mind wanders. Like, nope, back to task. Nope, back to task. And I actually got through my task. So it's. It's quite huge. And that, you know, works both in relationships as well as in work. So, you know, I've seen my relationship with my husband improve dramatically because I'm not, like, running away from the problems in our relationships or, like, when I screw up, I'm not running away from myself in the uncomfortable feeling that comes up with it.

[B]

That's fascinating. You're a great salesperson, even though you're not trying to sell me anything. But I totally want one now. Half a million. Congratulations. That's huge.

[A]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[B]

Is there just questions about the product itself? Is it just you buy it one time, or is there a service you can sign up for to keep track of what you're doing? A monthly service, perhaps?

[A]

Sure. So you buy the device and it's either then used two for meditation and brain health, or the Muse s for meditation, brain health, and sleep. And you can just get the device alone. And with that, you get a ton of features. You get biofeedback on your brain, heart, breath, and body. And you get to track all of your data. If you sign up for, there is a small subscription which then gives you even more features and allows you to specifically track your cognitive function over time. So we're able to track a metric of your alpha peak frequency, which changes throughout the day, and it also changes over years. There is a paper that was written based on our data a number of years ago that shows that alpha peak frequency changes reliably decade by decade and actually is a reliable biomarker for aging the aging brain. So just with the device, there's lots of features, and then with the subscription, you get even more content and the ability to really dive even more deeply into your brain health. And then I should also mention, the Athena device has a second technology in it. So both of them are EEG technology, but Athena also has prefrontal cortex tracking. It's a technology called fnirs, Frontal Near Infrared spectroscopy, where it's able to track the blood flow to your prefrontal cortex. And you're also able to do neurofeedback to increase the blood flow to your prefrontal cortex, thereby strengthening its ability and its function.

[B]

That is really cool. Congrats again. That sounds amazing. I can't wait to try it. Well, how does training the brain with this neurofeedback system you've developed differ from other forms of self improvement like therapy, coaching, or even some traditional mindfulness practice?

[A]

So all forms of self improvement are good? I don't think there's a hierarchy of it. I spent a decade as a psychotherapist psychotherapy is key, and anything that you can do for habit change is important and helpful. With muse, we particularly help you basically go to the gym for your brain. So in the same way that you'd go to the gym for your body and do specific exercises to train your focused attention, to train the muscles in your body, with muse, we help you train your meditation training, your focused attention. Neurofeedback. We have neurofeedback and biofeedback for the heart and the breath, also to help you calm your physiology. And then we help you train your prefrontal cortex and its oxygen delivery. So there's, you know, very targeted training for the brain, which differs from other methodologies like talk therapy or going for a run. You know, it's very specific.

[B]

Well, it sounds like you built an amazing company, and it sounds like it sits at the intersection of science and wellness. Can you let our listeners know what challenges you faced in bridging these worlds? And how have you navigated the skepticism or resistance? Because I did do some research before the call, and you don't have a lot of bad reviews out there. The most of them were people that, what I could tell, never tried the product like they were supposed to, but the reviews were really good. But I'm sure you've had to navigate that skepticism and resistance. Talk to us about that.

[A]

Totally. So, I mean, I started in 2000 with this technology in a research lab. So it's been 25 years. And, you know, when we first started, the idea that you could have a tool that could track and train your brain directly was really novel. It wasn't until, you know, 2010, 2012, that you started to see wearables like the Jawbone up and the Nike Fuel Band, like, even before Fitbit, like the super early wearables that could track your heart rate. And so to have a wearable that could track and train your brain was really novel. And we even had lots of scientists say, well, you can't get good data from, you know, a headset like this that anybody can just put on really easily. And then the neuroscientists started to write papers using Muse. And now there's probably 1500 neuroscientists around the world that use MUSE for, like, real research. And even so, I still sometimes hear about skeptics that are like, well, you can't get real data with Muse. And they'll show them, like, the paper published in, like, Nature, Neuroscience and Frontiers, it's like, no, this is really is good data. And then I think on the meditation side, the skepticism comes in. Initially, there was skepticism of meditation altogether. I mean, it wasn't until, again, like, 2010, 2012, that meditation started becoming a popular thing. Before that, people are like, what is this device? And we're like, it's a cognitive trainer. Because we didn't even want to say the word meditation. And so there is, you know, overcoming all of that skepticism there and then now I think people are pretty comfortable with the idea of wearables. We're comfortable with things being novel and being successful and working. We've had skepticism in the world of meditation, like, oh, you know, isn't meditation supposed to be a spiritual practice? Like, how can you do spiritual practice? Practice the technology. And the answer there is like, well, I mean, you certainly don't have to, but a tool is a tool. Like, glasses help you see better. Like, you know, a mirror reflects back at you. This is something that gives you greater insight into your mind, which helps you train yourself in this meditation process more effectively. So I hope the world continues to be skeptical about all sorts of things, because we need to have, you know, good reflection on the things around us and ask, is this true? Is this real? Does it do what it's supposed to do? And you. Luckily, we've been able, because we have such a scientific validation, to over and over again prove, like, yep, it really is real. Yep, it really does work. And I think it really was through the course of working with so many scientists that we've been able to overcome those objections.

[B]

That's really cool. Well, I also think that if your membership is growing, your monthly payments are growing. Clearly people aren't going to sit there so many apps that they can pay for every month, because everybody's going to that model, which is smart from a business standpoint, to have recurring revenue. I've always said if you don't have recurring revenue in your business, you don't own a business, you own a job. And you're usually working for a lunatic. So kudos to you for having the guts to do that. But if people keep paying you, clearly, you're clearly developing or delivering some value.

[A]

Thank you. Yeah, our churn is incredibly low.

[B]

That's awesome. I love that. Well, the world seems to be getting increasingly stressful. I had somebody tell me, the world's a dumpster fire. Kevin. I'm like, okay, well, maybe, but how you react to that is what really causes it to be a dumpster fire. But that's another. Another day, another episode. But many people today feel overwhelmed if someone is listening right now feels like their mind is constantly racing. They can't slow down. What's one simple thing they can do today to start taking control?

[A]

The first thing you can do is to recognize that you don't need to buy into everything you hear. The world is always going to be complex and you can have a choice about how you engage with the content that you're hearing. So it can really feel like the world is overwhelming. And if I had to think about every problem of everybody in the world right now, I would be completely beyond overwhelmed. But thankfully, that doesn't have to be my job. And so I can choose to prioritize what is important to me and choose the two or three things that I really care about and that I can have an impact on and that I can change and that, you know, are meaningful to the people around me, my family, my employees, you know, my immediate environment. And I can choose to let go of everything else that I don't have control over, because I don't need to think about it if I don't have control over it and if it's, you know, not going to have a dramatic and direct impact on me. Yes, there's things beyond me that will have a dramatic and direct impact on me, and hopefully there are people that are thinking about it and working hard on it, but I can't work hard on everything. So you really want to make a priority, have choose the things that you can control in your environment, focus on those things. Maybe focus only on the top three or four things within those things so that you don't have to have the noise in your head and your brain might be saying, no, but I have to care about this, and I have to care about this, and I have to care about this. And it's our job to say, I hear you, brain. I hear you want me to think about those things, but it's not actually going to help me right now. It's not actually going to bring me to peace right now. It's not actually going to get food on my table right now. Let's just focus the things that matter right in front of me and take a deep breath, calm your mind, calm your body, and move forward.

[B]

Great advice. Well, if you could go back and give your younger self one piece of advice before starting Muse, what would it be?

[A]

It's a good question. I'm thinking what that would be. I could go back and give my earlier self advice. The advice would be that you can have the confidence to believe in yourself and what you're doing. And I Did have a lot of confidence as a youth that I was able to do this wild thing, you know, create this wild company that was so kind of beyond what most people would conceive of. And I was lucky enough to be in a place where I didn't have children. You know, I didn't have to. If I could make risks, I could take risks, and those risks wouldn't kill me if I. If I failed because I didn't have to support a family. And so I would really tell myself to take all the opportunity I could while I was in a place of relative safety. You know, if I didn't make money, it's okay. It's pretty cheap to eat. As a 23. Single person, single person, you could, you know, crash on a friend's couch if for some reason you can't make rent. You know, there's. There's always a way out when you're. When you're that free and easy and to really take advantage of that time and the opportunity that comes with it and to stretch myself as far as I could in that time. Because once you do have children and family and obligations, it's a very different

[B]

ballgame, that's for sure. I've been alone for 10 years, and I recently started dating somebody that has four grown children and five grandchildren at 43. So it's completely. I'm not. I don't know anything about kids, but now they're. Then we're watching. She watches them full time during the day. So it's been a little stressful just learning that. That kids are not actually bipolar. They're just kids. So. Yeah, because one minute they're crying, then the next one that they love you, and then they're crying again. I'm like, I don't know what I did. I just looked at them. So it's funny.

[A]

Yeah. You didn't do anything. And it's very hard to be with somebody who has to have the obligation of children and grandchildren, all of these things, if you yourself are single, because it's hard to understand that somebody's. That their mind needs to be in all of these places. They need to be thinking about all of these people and their needs and how they're going to be supported. And it's very, very, very different than being a single individual who doesn't have to have those responsibilities or who's able to be free of those responsibilities. And it leads to a very different lifestyle. It leads to a very different set of priorities. It's fascinating to think about the differences.

[B]

It Is. And I'm excited to try your product because it's given me a whole new level of stress before bed, because not used to worrying about kids or grandkids or, oh, my gosh, what's wrong with him? Or, oh, my gosh, what's wrong with them? So it's been a little difficult to calm down at the end of the day, especially when I'm gone and doing the book tours and traveling back and forth, and I come home thinking it's going to be quiet. I'm like, no, no, no. We got two birthday parties. It's like, okay, well, let's go, let's go. No stopping. One of my favorite questions to ask at the end of each interview is, you've clearly invested in yourself over the years. What's your favorite way to learn new things or invest in yourself? Is it reading? Podcasting? Is it live meetings? Joining masterminds? Do you have coaches? What? How do you like to invest in yourself?

[A]

Okay, so my first answer to that is mindset. So the mindset that is required for all of these things is a mindset that I can change and I can grow and I can learn. And for a period of my time, my mindset was very fixed to feel like if I was learning something, it meant that I was bad or wrong because I didn't know it in the first place. So I had some resistance around that. So I worked very hard to shift that mindset. And I think a lot of people have a fixed mindset where they want their personality to be the same, and if I learn this thing or if I develop, you know, I won't be the same person. And so I also had to do a bunch of work in that domain. It's like, no, I can expand in all of these different ways and learn and grow and shift, and maybe I won't be the same person, and that'll be a great thing. I can be a person who can change in all these ways. And so I would say that my favorite way to invest in myself is both to have this mindset of being able to shift and change and adapt, and to believe that adaptability is my best skill and to have a husband and a family that is supportive of those changes and not trying to keep me fixed in a box of who they need me to be. I mean, my kids totally have me fixed in a box of who they need me to be, which is fine, but my husband's much more flexible.

[B]

That's good. We make you feel good because we have a coaching program called M3, Mastery. It's mindset, margins and momentum. So mindset. We've always found that if you build the business owner that builds the business, we can get people to be wildly successful. And we focus the whole entire first year of a coaching program on their mindset when people join the program. So I agree with you. You 100 and you're the first guest that's actually said that. So because this is my favorite question, we're actually putting together about a 20 minute video with all these podcasts that I've done for two years and just the different answers that people have. Some people love to read, some people love attending live events, some people like joining masterminds, others like coaches, others like podcasts. But you're the first person to say mindset, so I love it.

[A]

I'm the one who's not afraid to be outside the box. Just throw all the boxes.

[B]

I can't imagine what it was like for you when you first started this and how much you got. Got ridiculed or denied or made fun of. Maybe it still happens today. I would guess reading some of the. I'm serious, though. There wasn't a lot of bad reviews that I could find. And the ones that did, I was like, well, they clearly didn't use it or they're just giving their opinion before they even bought it.

[A]

Yeah, it's been remarkably positive. I mean, one of the great, I think, indications of this as being a success is that everywhere I went when I told people this, they'd be like, like, really? Does that exist actually? Is that possible? Like, yeah, and I want one. So there was, although we were way ahead of the curve and that led to a lot of people being incredulous and like, is that, is that even possible? You know, the next thing that comes is usually like, oh, cool, I want that. And so we were able to make it happen.

[B]

That's really neat. Have you done any research? One of the. My business partner does a quote, I'm going to butcher it, I think a little bit, but he always talks about that there's one state of mind where your brain waves align with your heart rhythm or waves, something to that effect. And it's when you're in a state of gratitude. Have you heard anything about that?

[A]

So I have not. I think that's a little bit of a, of a butchered science concept. So your brain waves align with your heart waves.

[B]

Okay, so maybe it's not heartwaves. Like I said, I probably butcher it. He's, he's read the research. He just Found a couple of studies that showed that when your brain and your heart are aligned, it's. Whatever that means. It's usually when you're in a state of gratitude.

[A]

Yeah, there's a concept of brain heart coherence. So in hrv, as you breathe in, your heart rate increases. As you breathe out, your heart rate decreases, so your heart rate goes up and down with your breath rate in this nice sinusoidal rhythm. And when you're very relaxed or in a state of gratitude, you have dramatically higher peaks on your in breath of your heart rate and lower values on your out breath. So you have really high hrv. And the state of gratitude, as well as states of relaxation and other positive states, create that state of like, beautiful sinusoidal rhythm. It doesn't actually exactly match with your brain waves, but when you're in that state, your brain waves are also in this like, nice state that is coherent with themselves. So it's like your brain and heart are matching, but that you're. Both of you are. Both brain and heart are in a beautiful rhythm.

[B]

Okay, so maybe that's a better way to say it. That's why I asked. So it's interesting. And we had somebody on our kind of going completely blank. We've recorded a ton of these, but he was actually worked for a heart institute that studied like the, the power that the, the heart gives out. And they were actually measuring some type of energy that can go out six or eight feet from your heart out. I don't know how they did it or what they did. Huge organization though. But like you, we're really pushing the boundaries and found something that people are starting to believe more in.

[A]

Our brain and bodies really are electrical organs. So when our neurons communicate, they do so with electrical signals back and forth, action potentials. And those electrical signals can be read on the surface of the head. Those are our brain waves. And when your muscles contract, that's an electrical signal. And that you can read with an electrical signal called an electromyogram emg. So you know, your muscle contraction is. Creates an electrical signal that can be read not just on the surface, but a little bit out from it. And when your heart contracts, your heart is a huge, big, beautiful muscle. And we read that as your ekg, your ecg, your electrocardiogram. It is a strong electrical impulse that you can see on a graph that goes up and down with each beat. And in fact, our ekg, the pulsing of our heart, is so strong that you can indeed read it not just right at the surface, but Even at a little bit of a distance. So our electrical bodies are fascinating and carry a lot of information about us that's both used as signaling within the body to coordinate the movements of the heart of the mind, of the neurons of the contractions, the muscle fibers, and potentially also used beyond the body in ways that we haven't yet properly categorized.

[B]

Yeah, it sounds like we're still discovering new things. The heart thing blew me away, just like your research blew me away today. So thank you for being here. If people want to get in touch with you, Ariel, what's the best way for them to get in touch?

[A]

So you can find me on all the socials at Choose Muse. C H O O S E M U S E Choose Muse. And you can find out more about [e-mail] I love it.

[B]

Wasn't there a band called Muse too?

[A]

There was totally a band called Muse. So we are Muse, the Brain Sensing headband. Not to be confused with the Muse band.

[B]

It'd be pretty cool if you get Muse to promote your product, though. That would be neat. Probably cost you a fortune because they're pretty popular, but it would be cool.

[A]

Well, I was actually just thinking this morning, there have been quite a number of singers that use Muse, so Sting, for example, uses Muse. I know that because I became friends with Sting's very brief time son in law and like at Christmas, Sting had it on his table, like, really amused. Yeah. So there have been a number of quite famous singers that love to meet.

[B]

That's really cool. I saw him at a conference we had in a medical field. Incredible voice, incredible voice, incredible singer. So. Well, thank you for being here. We're almost at the top of the hour and I don't want to take too much of your time. You were amazing. Amazing information. We'll make sure that we put everything that you talked about. Any links or websites, we'll put that in the description.

[A]

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Kevin. So nice to connect with you.

[B]

You too, Sam.