Hello and Welcome to Muse!

Muse 2 is an incredible tool to help you start or deepen your meditation practice.

Muse’s meditations will help you learn how to meditate or bring your meditation practice to a new level with real-time feedback on your brain, heart, breath, and body during the meditations. These help you learn to better focus your attention and calm your mind and body.

Below we’ve compiled important information on how to get the most out of your new Muse. It will show you how to set up and fit your new Muse, how to navigate the parts of the app to enjoy all of our meditation experiences, and how to use post-session reports to see the progress of your sleep and how your meditation practice has helped you focus your mind.

We’re excited to help you access the benefits that a meditation practice can bring.

Connecting Your Muse

Download the Muse app

If you haven’t already, download the Muse app by visiting choosemuse.com/download on your phone or tablet and create an account. You can also click the links below on your mobile or tablet device to download the Muse app on Apple or Android devices.

Download on the Apple App Store >

Get it on Google Play >

Turn On Your Device

To turn on your headband, click the small button next to the charging port on your Muse pod. You’ll know it’s on when you see blue cascading lights moving back and forth as Muse looks to connect via Bluetooth to your mobile device.

Check Your Battery Life

To check the charge level of your Muse click the power button one more time after the headband has been turned on and it will indicate how charged the headband is by the number of lights that are full. If only one or two are lit up, it may be time to charge. Whereas three lights indicate a full charge.

Connecting Your Headband to the Muse App

To pair your headband to the Muse app you must have Bluetooth and location services on your mobile device turned on. Bluetooth and location services can be adjusted in your mobile device’s main settings. Once Bluetooth and location services are on you can come back to the Muse app and pair your headband by clicking on the Bluetooth icon at the top left-hand of your screen.

Fitting Your Muse

Muse Sensor Check & Calibration

Before every session, sensor check will show you if you’re wearing your Muse correctly. Each of the sections corresponds with the physical locations of the sensors in your Muse device. There are sensors across the forehead, including a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor on the right side and sensors behind the ears.

 

Once sensor check is complete, calibration will start and last for one minute. The results of a Muse session are dependent on the quality of the calibration before your session. This stage is important because it provides Muse with a picture of your active brain to compare against during the session. Your brain changes from moment to moment, so the one-minute calibration process is a required step to make sure Muse will provide accurate and responsive feedback based on your current state.

During the calibration phase, allow your mind to wander as it normally would throughout the day. This will allow Muse to receive the most accurate picture of the current state of your brain to compare your meditation session against.

How to Fit Your Muse

To correctly fit your Muse 2, gently extend the adjustable earpieces while being mindful not to extend further once you feel tension. Overextension can lead to internal damage in your Muse device. Your headband should be extended so that it is slightly larger than your head size before adjusting it on your head.

Place your Muse along the middle of your forehead with the rubber ear sensors resting behind your ears. The earpieces should sit behind your ears just as a pair of glasses would. Adjust both sides simultaneously to tighten it back up for a snug fit that feels comfortable. Both earpieces should be equally extended to ensure there are no gaps and that all sensors have good skin-to-sensor contact. The headband should run across the middle of your forehead – not too high (near your hairline) or too low (near your eyebrows.)

Make sure that there is no hair between the sensors and your skin, as this can prevent Muse from getting a good signal. Move any hair from above or behind your ears as you adjust the fit for the best results. If you have long hair we recommend tying it up.

You may need to adjust your Muse headband a few times to obtain the best fit and most consistent signal quality. Please pause for 30-60 seconds after making any adjustments to allow the signal to settle. In time, you’ll find the fit that’s right for you and this step will become second nature before you start a meditation session.

When you have finished your session, store your Muse device in a Muse hard case or the original box that it came in to help preserve your device for years to come.

If your device is not performing as expected, we would love to hear from you to help improve your experience. Please contact our Customer Care team here.

The band should sit snug and comfortable around your head.

We recommend watching the video below to learn how to properly fit your Muse S device.

 

How to Get Good Signal Quality

If you’re having difficulty getting a good signal quality there are a couple of different ways to remedy this.

1. Apply a damp tissue or cloth (moistened with water) to the Muse sensors. Give them a gentle wipe to assist conduit of the sensors with your skin.
2. Or use the damp cloth or tissue and run across your forehead and behind the ears to improve sensor connection. You can also take a damp cloth to your forehead and behind your ears to improve signal quality.

 

Meditating with Muse

This is a collection of biofeedback meditation experiences designed to help you find focused calm. In the meditation section, you’ll find Mind, Heart, Body & Breath Biofeedback Experiences, plus Timer and Premium Experiences such as Guidances, Guided Courses, and External Audio.

 

Navigating the Meditation Section of the Muse App

 Find all Meditation Experiences by tapping the lotus icon on the main bottom navigation.

At the top of your screen, you will see Muse Program. Scroll to the right to view each program and click in to watch. Programs provide a sequential meditation course to enhance your practice. The best part is – they are free!

Below programs, you’ll find all of our Muse Meditation Biofeedback Experience from Mind, Body, Breath, Heart, and Timer. Scroll to the right to view each experience and click in to explore a list of soundscapes for your chosen Meditation Experience.

Further down, you’ll find all Premium Subscription Experiences. Subscribers can now find all Premium features under the Premium Experiences section including Guidances, Guided Courses, My Library, and External Audio.

Programs

Learn how to set up and fit your new Muse, how to navigate the parts of the app, how to use post-session reports to see the progress of your sleep, and how your meditation practice has helped you focus your mind.

 

Muse 2 Starter Guide:

Discover all the app has to offer, learn how to leverage your post-session reports, get the best headband fit, and more in the Muse 2 Starter Guide.

External Audio:

Learn how to layer Biofeedback with your favorite apps and how to customize your session for your best meditation experience with External Audio.

Meditation Biofeedback Experiences

Our Mind, Heart, Body & Breath Meditations are designed to help teach you the skill of focused attention and mindfulness. Research shows that daily meditation can:

• Improve memory
• Improve focus
• Improve relationship satisfaction
• Reduce stress
• Strengthen emotional control and resilience

Find all of our Muse Meditation Biofeedback Experience from Mind, Body, Breath, Heart, and Timer. Scroll to the right to view each experience and click in to explore a list of soundscapes for your chosen Meditation Experience. Once you’ve selected a soundscape, choose the length of time you’d like to meditate.

How to Start a Mind, Heart, Body, or Breath Biofeedback Meditation

1. Fit your Muse & connect your device to the Muse app.
2. Select a Meditation Biofeedback Experience.
3. Select a Soundscape from the list.
4. Choose the length of time you’d like to meditate.
5. Complete sensor check.
6. Complete calibration.
7. After calibration is complete, your session will begin.
8. When your soundscape has ended, click ‘Stop Tracking’ to end your meditation session. You will be prompted to reflect on your mood, or you can use the Journal to jot down any thoughts or insights you may have observed during your meditation.
9. Next, for any Mind, Heart, or Body Biofeedback Soundscape Experience, you can review your results from your post-session report that includes your % calm, average heart rate and BPM, and % stillness. If you complete a Breath Biofeedback Soundscape Experience, you will receive the above plus, % breath in harmony with the guide.

 

Reflect & Jot Down in Your Journal

 

Upon ending your meditation session, a Reflection screen will pop up. Here you can simply toggle how refreshed you feel after each meditation session. Do you feel calm, neutral, or stressed? Based on how you feel over time, you can experiment with your meditation routine and make any tweaks needed to help you find focused calm.

The Journal feature allows you to quickly jot down any moments of insight, or things that are taking your focus away from your breath.

Mind Meditation

Why Do a Mind Meditation?

With Mind Meditation, you’ll receive real-time feedback on your brain activity which will help you quickly learn when you’ve become distracted so you can bring your attention back to your breath. Over time, with the help of this biofeedback, the faster you’re able to realize your mind has wandered, the faster you’ll be able to get back into a focused state.

Mind Meditation Biofeedback

Your selected soundscape will adjust to provide real-time biofeedback to let you know when your mind is active or calm throughout your session. For example, when the weather gets louder it’s a reminder that your mind is wandering. And as the weather gets quieter it lets you know your mind is calm.

When Do I Earn Birds with Mind Meditation?

During Mind Meditation you will hear and earn birds when you’ve reached a deep, restful focus on your breath for longer than 5 seconds. Be mindful of the birds, but don’t fixate on them as you may make them fly away.

When Do I Earn Recoveries with Mind Meditation?

You’ll earn recovery stars when you have recognized your mind has become distracted and you are able to quickly bring your attention and focus back to your meditation. When your mind returns to a focused calm state and the weather becomes quieter you’ll receive a recovery star.

Think of Recoveries as a measure of your mindfulness muscle. They help you track how many times you recovered during meditation by bringing your focus and attention back to the meditation. You can take pride in your recoveries because they mean you are achieving progress by identifying when you need to settle your mind, body, breath, and heart during your meditation practice.

What Do My Mind Meditation Results Mean?

The Mind Meditation results will help you understand how often your brain was active, neutral or calm during the meditation. Active means your mind was wandering or distracted. Calm means you were in a deeply restful state focused on your breath, and neutral is a natural resting state.

 

The goal is a greater % of calm than neutral or active. You can monitor your progress by reviewing how much time you spent in each state after each meditation.

Heart Meditation

Why Do a Heart Meditation?

The Heart Meditation guides you to sync your heartbeat with the soundscape to teach you to tune into your internal cues to slow down your heartbeat and find calm.

This type of meditation can help you self-regulate in times of physical or emotional stress.

Heart Meditation Biofeedback

During your Heart Meditation, your selected soundscape will adjust to provide real-time biofeedback to let you know when your heart rate is increasing or has lowered as you listen to the meditation. This trains you to be able to self-regulate in times of stress.

When Do I Earn Birds with Heart Meditation?

When your heart rate drops to a new low during a heart meditation, or if you consistently maintain a low heart rate you will hear and earn birds.

When Do I Earn Recoveries with Heart Meditation?

You’ll earn recovery stars when your heart rate goes from high to low compared to the usual rate.

What Do My Heart Meditation Results Mean?

Once your Heart Session has ended you’ll be presented with your heart meditation results.

Your Heart Meditation results will present your heart rate graph with your highest and lowest heart rate throughout the meditation session as well as historical high and low to be able to reference for improvement in the future. Remember that daily stress and emotions can also be a factor in how you feel. Use these stats to see if you’ve managed to lower your heart rate to find calm in the meditation.

Body Meditation

Why Do a Body Meditation?

The Body Meditation will help you find a comfortable position to find stillness.

It’s normal to fidget and move during practice while you’re settling into your breathing or if you get distracted – this experience can help cue you to when you’re moving to help you find stillness again.

Body Meditation Biofeedback

As you listen to a body meditation, the real-time biofeedback will bring your attention to your movement shifts, building your awareness of your posture and movements.

When Do I Earn Birds with Body Meditation?

During Body Meditations when your body stays in a relaxed state for an extended period of time, you will be rewarded with birds.

When Do I Earn Recoveries with Body Meditation?

You’ll earn recovery stars when you recover from an active state to a relaxed state of stillness.

What Do My Body Meditation Results Mean?

The Body Meditation results will show a graph with two ‘zones:

Relaxed is the time you spent in a still and stable position and an Active zone represents the time you had notable movement.

You’ll also find a baseline that is established during calibration and what is used to establish your relaxed and active zones.

Breath Meditation

Why Do a Body Meditation?

Your breath is a powerful force that connects your mind and body. When you are unable to focus on the pace of your breath your mind can wander and your body may become tense.

Muse Breath Meditation biofeedback will teach you to become aware of the sensation of your breath and set its pace to help you relax your body, calm your mind and even give you energy when you need it.

Breath Meditation Biofeedback

During a Breath Meditation as you follow the guiding sounds and match the breathing pattern, your body and heartbeat will be in harmony, and you’ll hear musical tones to affirm your progress to keep you on track with the breath meditation.

When Do I Hear Birds in Body Meditation?

When you remain in harmony with the breath guidance for 5 seconds you’ll receive and earn a bird.

When Do I Earn Recoveries with Breath Meditation?

You’ll earn recovery stars when you regain harmony with the audio guide.

What Do My Breath Results Mean?

As the breath meditation plays you follow the breath audio. The Breath Meditation post-session reports provide a graph to show you how in harmony you were with the breath guidance – from low, medium to high harmony.

Low harmony is rated as 50% in harmony, medium falls between greater than 50% but less than 90%, and high harmony is 90% or greater. You can track your progress by viewing how often you achieve a medium or even high harmony with the meditation breath guide.

Timed Meditation

Why Do a Timed Meditation?

Timed meditations are available to use without your headband and provide a multitude of different soundscapes to find your calm. Some of our Musers use Timed meditations to get in a quick 5-minute meditation and to maintain their streak score.

Will I Hear Birds with Timed Meditations?

During a Timed Meditation experience, you’ll hear a light relaxing soundscape and occasional guidance. You won’t receive moment-to-moment feedback or birds, but your minutes, streaks, goals, and challenges will still count to your overall session count.

Your Timed Meditation Results

With each Timed meditation session, you’ll receive Muse points based on the number of minutes meditated. Post-session reports are not available with Timed as your headband is not needed to listen to these meditations.

Premium Subscription Experiences

If you have a Premium Subscription you’ll have access to over 500 Guided Meditations as well as External Audio. Find out more below.

Access to 500+ Guided Meditations

The Premium Subscription Experience section is organized by Guidances, Guided Courses, External Audio, and My Library. You’ll find over 40 different types of guided meditation collections to choose from including sleep, resilience, focus, self-care, and more. Courses help you deepen your meditation practice and provide meditation lessons based on different meditation themes.

Your Guided Meditation Results

If you wear your headband to listen to a guided meditation you’ll receive:

• % Calm which shows you how focused
• % Still
• Average Heart Rate & BPM per minute

If you listened to a guided meditation without your Muse headband you’ll receive Muse points based on the number of minutes meditated.

Guided Courses

Our courses and collections offer a series of meditations with specific themes, such as Happiness, Mindful Work, or Changing Habits. Your Muse headband is not required for this experience, so you can listen to a Guided Course at any time.

External Audio

External Audio allows you to layer Muse’s real-time biofeedback on top of any external content including your favorite music, mediations, or audiobooks plus receive post-session reporting to see how your brain & body responded.

Why Use External Audio

 

Ever been curious to know how your brain responds when listening to music, a podcast, an audiobook, or any favorite app content? Have a podcast or audiobook that can instantly send you to dreamland, and want to get in-depth reports on how deeply you slept and how long it took you to fall asleep?

External Audio gives you thousands of different ways to explore how to meditate with Muse’s real-time biofeedback to guide you with your favorite external content.

How To Use External Audio

1. Select your Muse biofeedback content & start your session.
2. Put on your Muse and complete signal quality check.
3. Toggl to your external app, select your external content, and press play.
4. Go back to the Muse app and resume your session. Content from your other app will now play simultaneously while you track with Muse.
5. Once you’re done, come back to the Muse app, click “End Session” and review your results.

Your External Audio Results

Just as you would in a regular Muse Biofeedback Meditation session, you’ll receive all of the regular post-session reports including Mind, Heart, and Body.

Tracking Only

The External Audio “Tracking Only” experience allows you to enjoy your favorite external content without hearing Muse’s Biofeedback sounds. Muse simply tracks your mind & body in the background while you listen to your favorite content. After you’ve ended your session, you’ll receive all of the regular post-session reports including Mind, Heart, and Body.

Birds Only

The “Just Birds” External Audio soundscape allows you to layer external content with Muse’s External Audio to earn birds when you hold your focus for at least 5 seconds.

With ‘Just Birds’ you’ll hear only birds when your able to hold your focus for at least 5 seconds

during biofeedback with your external content and no other Muse biofeedback ‘cues’.

After you’ve ended your session, you’ll receive all of the regular post-session reports including Mind, Heart, and Body.

My Library

Love a certain guided meditation or course? Save them to your library so you can easily find it later.

 

Customize Your Biofeedback Experience

Settings

Tap the settings button to access controls for your experience, including volume balance, guidance, and alert.

Balance

Adjust the volume balance between the soundscape and voice guidance. This option is only available for experiences featuring voice and soundscape.

Repeat

Want to listen to your meditation again? Click the repeat icon.

 

Recommended Listening Devices

Wireless Headphone Recommendations

We have found the best wireless headphones to be the Apple Airpods. If you are an Android user we recommend the Shure Wireless Sound Isolating Earphones.

Wired Headphone Recommendations

If you prefer to use wired headphones, we recommend Apple Earpods with a wire attachment.

 

Track Your Progress

‘Me’ Dashboard

You’ll find all of your meditation and sleep stats in the navigation under the ‘Me’ section, simply click to discover your current and full historical stats history. The app also provides a historical view to help you track your progress and keep you motivated to build your meditation practice.

The ‘Me Dashboard’ allows you to track progress and see your all-time stats. At the very top of the page, you’ll find your streak number, the number of days you’ve meditated in a row, along with your longest streak achieved. Use this to help motivate you to build your daily meditation.

Your Meditation History

Directly below, you’ll find two areas to toggle between; your meditation stats and your sleep stats. In the meditation tab, you’ll be able to see your session history by type of Muse experience. For example, Mind or Heart. This provides an overview over time and you can scroll on the history graph to compare day-to-day. You can toggle between the different types of experiences to view your stats over time. If you want a more in-depth view of a session, click on Session history. This provides a list of all your completed meditations and post-session results.

All-Time Stats

A little further under the ‘Me Dashboard’ history graph, you’ll find a few motivational tools to help you stay on track including:

• Total Minutes: This provides you with an all-time number of minutes you’ve meditated.
• Recoveries: This provides you with an all-time number of recovery stars you’ve earned during your meditations over time.
• Birds: This provides you with an all-time number of birds you’ve earned during your meditations over time.
• Muse Points: This provides you with an all-time number of Muse Points you’ve earned during your meditations over time.

How Do I Set Weekly Goals?

Weekly Goals help you build a consistent practice with Muse. To set your next week’s goal, go to the ‘Me’ section of the Muse app and scroll down under your Meditation History. Tap “This Week’s Goal” and then “Next Week’s Goal” at the top of the page. Scroll to the adjust the amount of time you would like to meditate and click “Save”.

Leveraging In-App Challenges

The Muse app also provides in-app challenges to help you establish a daily or weekly routine to help you build your meditation practice. Challenges may include a greater number of minutes of meditating both in the morning and at night, or for several days in a row. This will help you figure out what works best for you while also building your motivation to keep up with your new meditation habit.

What are Milestones?

When you hit a new meditation Milestone, Muse will congratulate you on your achievement. Milestones help you honor your new meditation habit and routine. Nothing to do here, but congratulate yourself on a meditation job well done. Milestones include:

Total Birds Milestones:

• Hey, a bird! – Earning your first bird
• A Host of Sparrows – Earning a total of 25 birds
• A Party of Jays – Earning a total of 50 birds
• A Parliament of Owls – Earning a total of 100 birds
• A Murmuration of Starlings – Earning a total of 200 birds
• An Exaltation of Larks – Earning a total of 500 birds
• A Watch of Nightingales – Earning a total of 1000 birds
• A Pod of Pelicans – Earning a total of 2500 birds
• A Flock of Seagulls – Earning a total of 5000 birds
• One with the Birds – Earning a total of 10000 birds

Total Minutes of Calm

• 15 Minutes of Calm
• 30 Minutes of Calm
• 1 Hour of Calm
• 2 Hours of Calm
• 5 Hours of Calm
• +5 Hours of Calm for each following milestone

Total Calm Session (Spending more than half of your session calm):

• 1st Calm Session
• 5 Calm Sessions
• 10 Calm Sessions
• 25 Calm Sessions
• 50 Calm Sessions
• +50 Calm Sessions for each following milestone

Total Number of Muse Sessions:

• 5 Sessions
• 10 Sessions
• 25 Sessions
• 50 Sessions
• +50 Sessions for each following milestone

Marathon

• 1 Day Marathon Milestone: Each time you set a new personal record for most time spent Musing in a single day.
• Longest Session Milestone: Each time you set a new personal record for the longest single Muse session.
• Calmest Session: Each time you set a new personal record for time spent with a calm state of mind in a single session.

What are Awards?

There are over 100 Awards and Milestones within the Muse application. Below is more information about our awards milestones and how you achieve them.

• Brave Adventurer Award – 60% active for your current session
• Perfect Timing Award – Session was less than 10% calm
• Wanderlust Award – Your calm % in the beginning third of your session was 20% higher than the last third of your session
• Aviary Award – Earning at least one bird for every minute of your session
• Bronze Medal – You achieved 100 points in current session
• Silver Medal – You achieved more than 130 points in current session
• Gold Medal – You achieved 150 points in current session
• Platinum Medal – You achieved more than 170 points per minute in current session
• Marathon Award – Completed a session longer than 20 minutes
• Composure Award – You achieved more than 1 minutes in a calm state of mind in your current session

And many more!

 

Meditation Tips & Resources

What is the most effective time of the day to meditate? >

The Benefits of a 5-Minute Meditation >

What is the difference between meditation and mindfulness? >

A Deep Dive Into Brainwaves: Brainwave Frequencies Explained >

Sleep Tips & Resources

The Benefits of Sleep Trackers & How Tech Can Help >

Deep Sleep: Why It’s Key To Your Health (& How To Get More Of It) >

What Is The Best Sleep Position For You? It Depends. >

The Difference Between Meditation and Sleep >

Meditation For Sleep >

How Many Hours of Sleep Do I Need Each Day for My Age? >

Did You Know Getting Ready for Bed is Almost as Important as Sleep? >

Additional Resources

Didn’t quite find what you were looking for? Explore Muse FAQs for more information.

Read FAQs >