Relaxing Rhythms Reviewed in Daily Telegraph

By Alice Hart-Davis

"I'm hooked up to my computer via three "bio-feedback monitors" clipped to the middle fingers of my left hand. These are reading my heart rate, brainwave pattern and "skin response" with alarming accuracy and the results are unfurling as graphs in front of my eyes.

The more calmly I breathe, the smoother the undulations of the heart chart become, and the skin-response line slopes gratifyingly downwards towards nirvana. But then I turn away to make a quick note about what I can see and both graphs shoot skywards. Damn.

I move on to a "bio-feedback event" where, if I can keep my mind in neutral, a balloon will float serenely across the screen. Any exciting thoughts and the balloon gains height and bursts.

"Cool," says my eldest daughter, pushing me aside and clipping her fingers into the monitors. "Let me try."

"Zac Efron!" I shout and her balloon bursts, too.

How can the machine detect all this? I know that mind and body are intimately connected, but this demonstrates the principle in a terrifyingly graphic way.

I've tried many relaxation CDs, but this kind of bio-feedback programme moves the genre into a whole new dimension. Healing Rhythms, as it is called, is a very serious piece of kit and comes with endorsements from American "wellness gurus".

The idea behind the programme is to help busy people build relaxation into their working day. It is, if you like, an "active" way to relax, designed to suit people whose minds and lives race along so fast that they find it almost impossible to suddenly stop and switch off.

I have to admit that I'm now completely hooked."

Our MindSpa was reviewed by Bella Freud for an article on Memory and Concentration in October , 2009.

This is what she said :

"Being calm and relaxed is a huge boom to the frazzled mind. It is so easy to use up your memory with worry. Getting up in the same order means that your brain doesn’t have to fret about getting it right.; if keys and coats are always in the same place, you don’t have to think about it.

If your mind is trapped in a steel coil of anxiety, you can try the MindSpa which is a little iPod-like gadget that comes with earphones and glasses. The sounds and flickering lights cause the brain to follow the frequency of the stimulus, slowing down the brainwaves and producing the effect of meditation.

I loved this little machine and found it incredibly restoring. You can even use it with your eyes open. It puts you into a state of relaxed alertness and helps with everything from concentration to insomnia. Being relaxed means the intelligent unconscious will pop memory back into your head."

Featured our Meditation Machines in their Health Section , 28th August, 2007.

This is what they said :

"Before he got his MindSpa, Stephen Anderson, an electrical engineer from Lancashire, was desperate. For years he had suffered severe insomnia, until he came across Meditations-UK on the internet. "I wasn't expecting miracles," says Anderson. "I thought maybe there'd be a slight improvement over three or four months."

On the day it arrived, Anderson, 43, gave it a trial run. An hour later he woke up. "I never even catnap!" he says. Anderson has been using the MindSpa for six weeks now. "I've slept every night and can even lie in at weekends. And where I used to hit a brick wall at work, I can now reach solutions much more clearly."

Featured our MindSpa Meditation Machine in May, 2008

This is what they said :

"There’s no end to the excellent press that meditation gets, but sitting still and thinking of nothing isn’t as easy as it sounds. This unique piece of equipment might be just the thing to get you all mellow and de-stressed.

I’M NOT STRESSED!! That’s what they all say. The benefits of mediation are often not even breached because we can get too wigged out trying to make ourselves stop thinking, and also worrying about how much time has passed. With MindSpa, via a combination of auditory and visual stimulation, you can programme timed sessions that allow you to just sit back and chill.

WHAT’S WITH THOSE GLASSES? Slip on the shades and close your eyes. LEDs embedded in the glasses flash in time with the frequency of the sound that comes through the earphones; you can zone out (using the theta and delta sound frequencies) or increase your mental acuity (beta and alpha), all in the comfort of you own sitting room.

THIS CAN’T POSSIBLY WORK  It does, but it takes some getting used to. You may like to be private, as sitting around the house looking like a character out of Star Trek might invite slagging. Whenever I’ve tried to meditate, the time factor always interfered with my ability to relax. With MindSpa, twenty minutes went by in a snap. And I slept like a baby after every single use.

MindSpa: £175, available on www.meditations-uk.com"

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Featured our Meditation Machines in October , 2007.

This is what they said :

"Over the next few days I experimented with some more intense programs. Before I slept I tried the cognitive enhancement program, which is supposed to help with intense work requiring high mental capacity. I woke after a deep sleep, and as I walked to work I felt extremely calm and relaxed, but alert — almost serene.

The glasses can also be worn with a window sticker peeled off, and the eyes open. The idea is that instead of a coffee in the day when you start to flag, you work while wearing the glasses. I'm writing this now with them on, the lights flashing. You can't help but feel like Data out of "Star Trek." Here, at home, it's fine, but when I donned them at work I got some strange looks.

So do they work? Well, my experience is clearly not a scientific study, but I feel the MindSpa machine has improved my sleep patterns (which were, anyway, pretty good), and I do feel energized after a session."