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“I understand that maybe you can’t dedicate an hour a day to meditation. But if you can’t even take 20 minutes for yourself to meditate, you’re just letting your ego get in the way.” –Sabir Bey, Host of The Sabir Bey Show.
Most people don’t understand the importance of meditation, especially its importance for clarity, rest, and keeping the mind agile. But meditation is extremely important, especially at a time when we overload our minds with digital insight and allow that same digital platform to continue “thinking” on our behalf. For this, two leaders in meditation technology have teamed up to launch “a national challenge to ease people into mindful living.”
The companies also partnered with the Goldie Hawn Foundation to promote “mindful thinking” to children and educators. A headband created by Muse sets out to motivate people into adopting a better understanding of their minds during meditation.
At the onset of 2016, millions of people have publicly set resolutions to lead healthier lifestyles, and a sound mind is one of the most important elements of the “get healthy” process.
This nationwide initiative is leading a “1% Challenge that encourages people to dedicate at least 1% of their day to improving personal well-being” through mindful meditation. The challenge only takes up 14 minutes of a person’s day and can impact years of their life. This particular program is made up of expert-led “mindfulness sessions,” guiding habits and behavioral changes through sensor-monitoring technology.
Small changes to a person’s behavior have been proven to be more impactful than if a huge change was made at once. For this, many innovators in the tech world have been devising strategies that help bring about good habits and positive change to our populations. This particular movement is aimed at making mindful change through meditation. Meditation is essential to living and highly beneficial to one’s health.
The 1% Challenge has aimed at further impacting the lives of our children by teaming up with the Goldie Hawn Foundation, “an evidence-based curriculum and training program for educators and children” that was founded by the actress in conjunction with researchers, psychologists, and educators in growing a foundation for our future leaders. Together, Muse and eMindful are contributing to MindUp, the foundation’s program, based on participant activity in this program. Not only are participants helping themselves, but they are also helping our youth.
“Massive, redirectional changes are hard to sustain,” said Kelley McCabe, eMindful chief executive officer. “Our 1% Challenge starts with the premise that anyone can improve by taking small steps and building upon them. Over the course of one’s life, that can be transformational.”
Leading and guiding our youth to healthier transformation at a time that their brains are most elastic has the ability to create a more informed, more educated, and more intelligent generation than we have yet to produce in our lifetime. Many of our children have been left behind, but we are seeing the chance to turn around their futures and create a better tomorrow on their behalf.
This headband by Muse monitors brain activity through sensors that have been providing participants with real-time feedback through InteraXon Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technologies. Meshed with eMindful’s suite of evidence-based mindfulness programs, games, and exercises, people are able to improve and shape their health, wellbeing, control of chronic pain, and weight, many of which are all triggered through stress. The program also provides solutions to handling and maintaining stress, which in turn controls other elements taking place within the human body.
This tag team exercises the most important muscle in our body while allowing it to relax. The control we are then given over our minds, bodies, and souls is unprecedented and can save lives.
“For us at Muse we felt that a partnership with eMindful under the context of boosting awareness for meditation and healthy minds made a great deal of sense,” said Derek Luke, Chief Executive Officer of InteraXon, the company that develops Muse.
These technologies have been adopted by employers and health insurers all over the country, as well as by researchers and clinicians at over 100 top hospitals and universities. This speaks volumes for what this technology is doing for meditation and healing. Likewise, it’s something to keep in the back of your mind while shopping for resources in brain health and productivity. Your insurance company might just have your back on this one!
