Hi techno-lovers. As the Software Developer, I love things that improve my productivity and focus. In this Mendi review headset, I’m sharing daily experience in usage Mendi headband. The production company claims it boosts your focus and performance; sounds good, right? So, let’s dive deep on: what is it and how does it work.
Important: This is not sponsored post or something like that, I bought this Mendi device for my money.
Table of contents
What is the Mendi Headset?
The Mendi headset is a consumer neurofeedback (brain training i’d say) system: a forehead headband with smartphone application. The headband uses functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to monitor blood oxygenation changes over the prefrontal cortex, and the app turns that signal into spinning ball live feedback during training sessions.
The Mendi’s producer company markets this as improving “brain health/mental fitness” including claims like boosting focus, reducing stress, and improving performance, and many other cool things for your gray bro.
Currently, the Mendi headset costs around 280 dollars. whether it’s worth it or not is up to you. When I bought it, I thought it was a good investment in my mental health.
How Mendi headband looks like you could observe on their website, as I don’t want to include heavy images on my blog.
How Does Mendi Work?
The Mendi gives you an application where you can track your brain blood flow by observing a ball that goes up when you’re focused and falls down when you’re distracted. The more you focus, the bigger score you get.
Before starting the brain improvement session, it offers to do a short breath practice to help you calm down. I usually disable it because I’m always (no) calm.
The mini game with ball has different styles, transforming a ball into meteorite or flower; not so bad, but I wanted to see more backgrounds because it’s a bit routine to observe one background for a long time.
The application provides some customization for game, like I said: background, visual effects, and music. Recently, they integrated brain.fm music to boost your cognitive functions even more. Speaking about music, it really doesn’t matter, depending on my small research with me and my girlfriend; about this in next chapter.
Experimenting with Mendi Headset
As I love a more scientific approach, I tried to find some correlation between results and music that I use for session. The Mendi headset turned into a small research tool for me. I read a lot about how music/noise could help you concentrate, and I chose to make an experiment.
I did four sessions (in guest mode) for 5 minutes with different tracks: white noise, pink noise, brain.fm music, and built-in music, and stored all the metrics that app provides. Also, I asked my beloved girlfriend to experiment it too to gather more data. I also mixed tracks and recorded the data in random order to exclude the problem that the more time you’re using device, the more score you’ll get.
Three key metrics about the session: neural activity, control time, and oxygenation. The results are in the table below.
So, the lowest results were for the first attempt; then they raised over time (for GF at least). The music was different, so with this small research I couldn’t say the music really affects score. As a result, brain.fm music gave me the lowest score (because it was the first attempt, I assume), and the second-lowest for my girlfriend. I thought the results would be better for brain.fm because it helps me concentrate better. Sad but true. With this small research, I couldn’t correlate music with focus improvement.
Yes, this research has methodology problems; score should be tracked more than once for different music, so don’t judge me – I did it for fun.
Does Mendi Work?
I used it for three weeks for 15 minutes every day; it was an exciting experience, and I like this device. It’s super comfortable and probably helps me concentrate better, but I couldn’t say this one hundred percent, as I used it with other neuro feedback devices and used supplements for better focus.
During the sessions, I always tried to keep my mind on the in-game ball; sometimes I was successful in it. Sometimes I thought about my work, life, and other things. Sometimes I’ve got cool ideas in the session that I transferred from my mind to Apple Notes called: Mad Ideas. Sometimes, when I thought about work and projects, heavily focused on my mind, I’ve got better results than when I was following a ball.
Focusing on an object like a ball consumes a lot of resources and teaches your brain discipline; with neurofeedback provided by Mendi, you’ll get to know how to focus better because the game awards you for better focus.
From my perspective three weeks with Mendi device was very productive, I was focused and positive, my sleep was perfect. I built some routine and habits like every day meditation, but after this, vacation comes and blow up my routine and I put Mendi headset on my table and abandoned it. But I wanted to highlight it again – I couldn’t say this is the result of using this device.
Will I start using it again? I hope – yes, I’m trying to include it into my routine again but without visible results for now. Who knows when I start it again.
If you enjoyed this topic and mental health, read my “Strategies to boost ADHD focus for Developers” and of course follow me on LinkedIn to get to know about new articles.
