You’re doing everything right.
You’ve cleaned up your diet. You’re consistent with exercise. Maybe you’re even tracking your macros, taking your supplements, getting your steps in.
But you’re still exhausted by 3pm. Your sleep is terrible. You reach for snacks when you’re stressed. And some days, you just feel like your brain isn’t firing on all cylinders like it used to.
Here’s what nobody talks about: you can have the perfect meal plan and workout program, but if your nervous system is dysregulated and your brain is stuck in chronic stress mode, you’re fighting an uphill battle.
I learned this the hard way during one of the darkest chapters of my life.
When Everything Falls Apart
When I was caregiving through my late partner’s cancer journey while simultaneously building Mavy Wellness, I was barely holding it together. Every day felt like I was one crisis away from completely falling apart.
Late-night hospital runs. Making payroll. Trying to show up for clients. The constant worry that kept me up at night.
My partner, seeing how much I was struggling, gave me a gift that quite literally saved my sanity: a Muse headband for meditation.
At the time, I’ll be honest, I was skeptical. I needed real solutions, not some wellness gadget. But I was desperate enough to try anything.
That decision changed everything about how I manage stress, make decisions under pressure, and show up for the people who matter most.
Fast forward to now, and I just sat down with Ariel Garten, the neuroscientist and psychotherapist who co-founded Muse. This wasn’t just another podcast interview. It was a chance to thank someone who unknowingly helped me survive one of the most stressful periods of my life.
What I learned in this conversation will change how you think about brain health, stress management, and sustainable transformation.
Why Your Brain Deserves the Same Attention as Your Body
Here’s something that might surprise you: when your body is in a chronic stress state, it’s more likely to hold onto fat.
You already know this intuitively. When you’re stressed, you make worse food choices. You skip workouts. Your sleep suffers. Your recovery tanks. The inflammation goes up, and your body starts working against you instead of with you.
But here’s what most people miss: your brain is a muscle. Just like your biceps atrophy when you stop training them, your mental resilience weakens when you don’t work it.
Muse isn’t just a meditation device. It’s EEG technology (electroencephalography) that reads your brainwave activity in real-time and gives you feedback to help you train your brain.
The new Muse S Athena combines EEG brainwave sensing with FNIRS technology (functional near-infrared spectroscopy) that measures blood oxygenation in your prefrontal cortex.
Translation: it doesn’t just track stress. It helps you train mental strength, endurance, and recovery.
Think about that for a second. NASA uses this. Harvard uses it. The Mayo Clinic uses it. They’ve built the world’s largest EEG database with nearly a billion minutes of brain data.
And now this technology is something you can use at home.
How It Actually Works (And Why It’s Different)
When you sit down to meditate normally, you catch yourself five minutes later thinking about work, your to-do list, that difficult conversation you need to have. By the time you realize you’ve been distracted, you’ve already lost several minutes.
With Muse, you wear a comfortable headband that reads your brainwave activity. As you focus on your breath, you hear ambient sounds. When your mind wanders and stress builds (what neuroscientists call “high beta” brainwaves), the rain gets louder.
It’s an external cue that catches you immediately: “Hey, you’re drifting. Come back.”
When you get into that calm, focused state (alpha waves)? You hear birds chirping.
This isn’t just pleasant feedback. It’s classical conditioning for your nervous system. Your brain learns to recognize and return to that calm state faster and faster.
The Real-World Impact Nobody Talks About
Here’s what happened to me after using Muse consistently for about a year.
I was walking down a street in Tulum, Mexico. Just a regular walk. And I heard actual birds in the jungle.
My brain locked in INSTANTLY.
Total focus. Complete presence. It was like my entire nervous system shifted into peak performance mode just from hearing birds.
That’s not magic. That’s neuroplasticity. That’s your brain learning new patterns and responses.
But the benefits went way beyond that moment.
When something stressful happened in the business (and trust me, running a company means things break constantly), I noticed I wasn’t reactive anymore. I could observe what was happening, take a breath, and respond intentionally instead of from pure stress and emotion.
I stopped doom-scrolling on my phone. That compulsive need to reach for my device every time I had a thought or feeling just... faded away.
Most importantly: I could be present for the people in my life during an impossibly difficult time, without completely losing myself in the process.
The Science That Matters for People Our Age
Ariel shared something that really stuck with me: Muse tracks your alpha peak frequency, which is essentially a measure of how efficiently your brain is functioning.
You can track it session after session, day after day, and see how it varies. Morning versus night. Week after week.
Why does this matter for you?
Because cognitive decline isn’t inevitable. Your brain’s ability to adapt and change (neuroplasticity) doesn’t stop at 50, 60, or even 90 years old.
They’re currently running studies with older adults who have Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and mild cognitive impairment. These aren’t spring chickens. These are people dealing with real cognitive challenges.
And the research is showing that by improving their deep sleep and training their brainwave patterns, they’re seeing improvements in cognitive function.
One study at Baycrest Hospital worked with lonely older adults using Muse. After consistent use, they saw significant improvements in depression and quality of life.
The Mayo Clinic did a study with their doctors (busy, stressed, overworked professionals... sound familiar?) who used Muse for an average of just five minutes a day.
After six weeks: 54% decrease in burnout. Better cognitive function. Better sleep. Less stress.
Five minutes a day.
Why Sleep Might Be Your Biggest Leverage Point
When Ariel and I talked about sleep, I realized how much this matters for body composition.
Muse can track your sleep as accurately as a sleep lab. But more importantly, it has interventions to help you actually sleep better.
They have something called the “digital sleeping pill.” The device tracks your brain activity as you fall asleep and adjusts guided audio in real-time to walk your brain into sleep.
If you wake up during the night (which happens to most of us as we age), it automatically brings back the same experience that helped you fall asleep the first time.
Studies show it improves sleep quality by over 20% overall. For people who struggle with falling asleep, it can improve sleep onset by 55%.
Think about what a 20% improvement in sleep quality would do for your body composition goals.
You’d be less tired, so fewer cravings for quick energy from sugar and processed foods. Better recovery from your workouts. More mental clarity to make good decisions throughout the day. Lower inflammation. Better hormone regulation.
Sleep isn’t just rest. It’s when your brain clears toxins, consolidates memories, and literally repairs itself.
My Concussion Wake-Up Call
This past July, I got knocked out cold at a basketball scouting event. First concussion of my life.
Suddenly, I couldn’t think clearly. Long conversations became exhausting. I’d lose track of points I wanted to make. I could maybe hold two things in my head at once instead of my usual ten.
Reading became difficult. Physical exertion would make my brain shut down. I’d get so tired at the gym I could literally lay on the ground and fall asleep.
Ariel has had multiple concussions herself, so she understood exactly what I was going through.
Here’s what she explained: after a concussion, your brain becomes dysregulated. You end up with significant inflammation. Blood flow becomes dysregulated. Your mitochondrial efficiency (your brain’s energy production) takes a hit.
And one of the biggest things that becomes dysregulated? Sleep.
Once your sleep is off, it becomes even harder for your brain to re-regulate and heal itself. You get stuck in a loop.
This is where Muse becomes incredibly valuable. The meditation features help manage the mood swings and frustration that come with concussion recovery. The sleep tracking and interventions help re-regulate your sleep patterns. And the new oxygen training features help improve blood flow to your prefrontal cortex.
The lesson here isn’t just about concussions. It’s about how interconnected everything is.
Your stress affects your sleep. Your sleep affects your decision-making. Your decision-making affects your nutrition. Your nutrition affects your recovery. Your recovery affects your stress.
You can’t optimize one piece without addressing the whole system.
What Actually Changes When You Train Your Brain
The most valuable skill I learned from using Muse consistently is something Ariel calls equanimity.
It’s the ability to be with what is. To accept the current situation with grace and ease. To not get upset about things that aren’t working your way. To keep anchored in calm.
In practical terms, here’s what that looks like:
When traffic makes you late for an important meeting, instead of spiraling into “I’m going to be late” → “My boss is going to be mad” → “I’m going to get in trouble” → anxiety spiral... you catch the first thought, acknowledge it, and choose to put your attention somewhere productive.
When you open the fridge and see food that isn’t part of your plan, instead of giving in to food noise and rumination, you notice the first craving, recognize it for what it is, and move your attention elsewhere. The craving fades.
When something breaks in your business or life (and it will), instead of immediately reacting from stress and emotion, you can pause, assess the situation clearly, and respond intentionally.
This isn’t about being stoic or suppressing emotions. It’s about having space between stimulus and response. That space is where your power lives.
The Protocol That Actually Works
Start simple: five minutes of mind meditation per day.
That’s it. That’s where the research shows benefits begin.
Over time, build up to ten minutes. Maybe by week four you’re consistently doing ten minutes a day.
If sleep is an issue for you (and let’s be honest, it probably is), use the sleep tracking features. The digital sleeping pill takes two or three days to get used to, but after that, people love it.
For the newer features that train oxygen flow to your prefrontal cortex, start with just three minutes, three to four times per week.
Consistency matters more than intensity. Just like going to the gym, you want to do this regularly. If you can do it every day, choose a time when it naturally fits into your schedule. If you only end up doing it three or four times a week, that’s okay. Just stick with it.
Over time, you’ll see the benefits build.
Why This Matters More As We Age
Here’s something Ariel said that really landed for me: “You are never too old to pick up a piece of technology and use it. The more you do, the more you make positive change in your brain.”
Their database has people from very young ages all the way up to at least 90 years old. Ninety.
The research with older adults dealing with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and cognitive impairment is showing that even with these conditions, the brain still has the ability to adapt and change when it’s trained properly.
Your brain is plastic. It can change. It can improve. It can learn new patterns.
But only if you work it.
Most people spend thousands of dollars and countless hours training their bodies. They track their macros, their steps, their workouts, their supplements.
But they spend zero time training their brains.
That’s the missing piece.
If you’re stressed, your body will fight against your fat loss goals. If your sleep is poor, your recovery and muscle building will suffer. If your mind is constantly scattered and reactive, you’ll make decisions that don’t align with your goals.
Training your brain isn’t a luxury. It’s foundational.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Everything I’m sharing with you, I wish I had understood ten years ago.
Not just for my own performance and wellbeing, but for how I showed up for the person I loved most during the hardest time of her life.
The truth is, stress is going to happen. Challenges are going to come. Hard seasons are inevitable.
The question isn’t whether you’ll face stress. The question is whether you’ll have the tools to navigate it without falling apart, burning out, or sacrificing your health in the process.
Your body deserves training. Your brain does too.
If you’re serious about sustainable transformation, vitality, and actually feeling good in your body as you age, brain training isn’t optional.
It’s essential.
A Personal Note
I don’t typically endorse products I don’t have equity in. You won’t see me promoting random supplements or gadgets just because a company reaches out.
I’m sharing Muse with you because it genuinely made a difference in my life during a time when I desperately needed help. And after this conversation with Ariel, I’m even more convinced that this is something every serious wellness-focused professional should have in their toolkit.
If you want to check it out, here’s the LINK. No pressure. But if stress, sleep, or mental clarity are challenges for you right now, this might be the missing piece you’ve been looking for.
Your brain is the command center for everything else. Train it well.
Maxime Sigouin
Co-Founder of Mavy Wellness
P.S. If you found this valuable, I’d love to hear from you. Reply to this email and let me know what resonated most, or what questions you have about brain training and stress management.