H E A LT H
WELLNESS NOTES From meditation apps to biofeedback-powered playlists, a soundscape of healing awaits.
bodies in real time to compose music that shifts in reaction to our physical and emotional experience, with the promise of enhancing health, mood and performance. Music is beginning to take its place alongside diet and exercise as a fundamental element of an optimized lifestyle. Wellness music is quickly becoming a core part of the streaming business. For example, new apps like Myndstream create music that promises to enhance specific wellness goals. You can choose tracks for meditation (“Lilac Dreams”), focus (“Cupid Blindfolded”), relaxation (“Standing in the Rain”) or sleep (“Nebula”), while Mubert, the first “generative” music app, allows listeners to choose a computer-generated (and therefore always unique) stream of electronic sounds to aid activities such as “study” and “dream.” In the world of AI, Endel, based in Berlin, is an app that mines data from your phone (location, weather, time of day) and combines that with biometric and psychometric data (heart rate, physical activity) from your smartwatch. It then uses an algorithm (not a songwriter) to compose customized wellness music just for you. For less tech-savvy listeners (or if you just don’t feel like sharing all your personal data), there’s also a web version that allows you to stream various preexisting soundscapes. I tried one called “Balance,” which Endel claims is designed to “optimize
As with the scent of fresh flowers, or an exciting kiss, the experience of hearing music is something that’s somehow new each time. Maybe that explains why music is at the center of a new wellness movement, and why wellness is also transforming the music business. It’s a two-way street: While artists like Erykah Badu, Jhené Aiko and Sigur Rós have begun offering wellness experiences including guided meditations, sound baths, mantra-chanting and aromatherapy as part of their concerts, the wellness industry is going all in on music as a form of healing, meditation and motivation. It’s not just a matter of blasting the tunes that get you pumped at the gym. According to a recent study by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Maryland, the human brain is innately suited for music. From a neurological standpoint, music is the king of all stimuli. In fact, no other sensory input—from the smell of freshly baked bread to an amazing Swedish massage— can activate as many regions of the human brain, giving music unrivaled power to boost both mood and memory. While Tibetan singing bowls have been a staple of new age spas for decades, technology is opening intriguing new frontiers that go far beyond the traditional gong bath. A new generation of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered apps is drawing on biofeedback information from our
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BY DIMITRI EHRLICH
