You are a busy person. I know this because I am, too, and so is nearly everybody else in our hustling and bustling society. Business isn’t a bad thing, but it certainly provides plenty of challenges to overcome.
One of the challenges we all face is finding time to relax and let go of the stresses of everyday life. Thankfully, this is not a new feat. Humans have been studying methods of relaxation for centuries and perhaps one of the oldest of these methods is meditation.
The concept of meditation, when compared to the technological advances of the modern world, may seem rather archaic. It would almost seem that, by definition, meditation must remain separated from technology. However, the gap between the most down-to-earth practice of humans and our current technological habits is bridged by the Flowtime Biosensing Meditation Headband.
The Flowtime Headband
The headband itself is very lightweight and made mostly of plastic. The thin, silver frame of the headband is worn across the forehead, and there are pieces on either side made to rest on your ears. These two pieces are connected in the back by a black piece of elastic rubber. Three sizes of this piece come with the headband so that it can fit people with different-sized heads. The silver frame which rests across the forehead has five different sensors.
Initially, I was worried that these sensors would need to be pressed uncomfortably against my forehead, but I found that the Flowtime headband sat very comfortably on my head using the medium-sized rubber band. The headband is also light enough that I was able to forget I was wearing it while meditating.
The Flowtime headband comes with a white charging cable that plugs into a USB port. The opposite end of the charger appears to me to be unique to this device and attaches to the end of the headband by the ear.
Also included in the box for the headband are a quick start guide and a gift card for a three-month membership to the full version of the Flowtime app, which is free to download for both Apple and Android.
How It Works
The headband works using the five sensors contacting the user’s forehead. These sensors gather data about the user’s heart rate, breathing patterns, and five specific brain waves. To gather data, the headband must be connected via Bluetooth to a device that is running the Flowtime app. The app will analyze the data during the meditation session, and the results can be viewed in the app or exported as a CSV file.
Flowtime App
The Flowtime App was my favorite part of my experience using the Flowtime headband. Having never meditated so intently before, I was worried that I would be slightly in over my head looking at the data in the app. As it turns out, it was very helpful.
Upon creating a Flowtime account, the Flowtime app asks personal questions such as “Why do you meditate?” and “Have you ever meditated before?” to personalize the guided meditations that it suggests to you. The guided meditations are also divided into categories such as “Anxiety”, “Sleep”, and “Beginner” on the home page of the app.
The free three-month membership that comes with the Flowtime headband was nice to have, as it gives the user access to all the meditations in the app. However, the app also has a section for free meditations that cycle over time. There were enough meditations in that section that I believe I would certainly be comfortable using the Flowtime app without the unlimited access membership if that’s what I desired.
It’s also important to note that the Flowtime app supports the ability to use the headband even while meditating with other apps, a feature that I thought was very cool.
I enjoyed using the meditations in the Flowtime app. After a guided meditation, the Flowtime app shows a page with all the data from the meditation. This data includes Breathing Coherence, Brainwave Rhythms, HRV, Pressure, Attention, and Relaxation.
When I saw this, I didn’t know what any of it meant; however, through the app, I was able to read a little bit about what each of these statistics meant, what an ideal meditation trend for each statistic looks like, and how to try to control these things during a meditation.
For further understanding, I was able to click on links in the app that would take me to websites that would explain in further detail what each of these statistics is and why it’s significant to your meditation. I found this especially useful as a novice meditator because it allowed me to feel like I knew how to get better at meditating and showed me how these statistics were scientifically proven to be significant to meditating.
The Flowtime meditation app also keeps track of data from each meditation that a user performs and compares the results of each new meditation to all previous meditations. This makes it very easy to track your progress while meditating and see the results of practicing it regularly.
Before using the Flowtime app, I was also worried that it would be difficult to know whether the sensors on the headband were gathering information during a meditation, or if they would be easy to disrupt. To take care of this issue, the app conveniently has a tab that will check the headband to see if all of the sensors have proper contact and will tell the user to adjust the headband if necessary.
Battery
I could not find any claims for how long the battery for the headband was expected to last, but I certainly wish that it held its charge longer. The battery certainly does not take long to charge, but also has a hard time keeping a charge.
During my first use of the headband, I had no problems with the battery over two or three meditation sessions over about thirty minutes. After using the headband, I put it back in the box. In a few days, when I took the headband out of the box to use it again, the battery charge was too low, and I had to charge it again before using it. I hadn’t specifically recalled the battery being low when I finished using it the first time.
While I’m not exactly certain why this occurred, I do wish it was something that I didn’t need to worry about as much when I wanted to use the headband.
Overall
Before my experience with the Flowtime meditation headband, I was slightly skeptical about meditation practices. Using the Flowtime meditation headband certainly changed my mind as it was very enjoyable.
The headband was easy to learn how to use fit comfortably on my head. The Flowtime app was exceptionally helpful in teaching me how to meditate and tracking my progress. If there was one thing that I would improve about the product it would be the battery resilience. After using the Flowtime meditation headband, I believe I will add meditation to my repertoire of stress-relieving techniques.
Learn more about the Flowtime Bionsensing Meditation Headband at its website; purchase yours through Amazon for about $200.
