“You’ve got 40 seconds of uninterrupted focus.”
Apparently, that’s cause for celebration. For the past 10 minutes, I’ve been staring at my phone, trying to move a digital ball up a hill using nothing but the power of my mind. The Mendi headset I’m wearing is analyzing my brain activity and reflecting that back into the game. The more you concentrate, the higher the ball rises.
This exercise is supposedly working my mental muscle, just like you might use weights to train a physical muscle, ultimately improving my focus and reducing stress.
Like thousands of others, I’ve spent years wearing a smartwatch that helps me track my fitness and improve my physical health. But the wearables industry has set its sights on a new target: ours mental health. Today, we have smartwatches and brainwave reading devices that not only analyze the state of our nervous system, but also actively intervene to supposedly improve our well-being, making mental health support more accessible (and portable) than ever before. “We’re harnessing the brain’s ability to rewire itself so you can increase your emotional control,” he says. Mustafa HamadaMountain product and science chief.
As someone who suffers from stress and anxiety, I’m eager to try anything that can help me manage it. But with my background in neuroscience, I’m wary of believing the hype. So I delved into the growing array of devices that target concentration, focus, stress and anxiety, how they can work and really make a difference…
