Mind-Body Connection

CONNECTION Body Mind-

Students Use EEG Headbands to Measure Mindfulness

hese days, there are few among us who don’t own a smartphone. And with those smartphones comes an endless fountain of distractions. Emails, text messages, social media posts, news alerts, and the resulting pop-up notifications and visual and auditory reminders that come with them. Add to that the lure of on-demand streaming and deliveries at the click of a button, and what do you get? A whole lot of distractions. T

It’s no wonder, then, that mindfulness — and the practices and techniques associated with it — has emerged as a popular trend. But what exactly is mindfulness, what are its benefits, and how do you know when you are doing it right?

Through its year-long 10th grade PACE course known as “Mind-Body Connections,” CSW seeks to educate students on this important life skill. The goal is to promote an understanding of mental, physical, and emotional connections, teaching students how to exercise self-care, and in doing so, build a positive self-identity and practice effective decision-making skills. In an effort to observe and measure the impacts and effects of mindfulness training, course instructors have taken the innovative step of partnering with BrainCo, a tech startup incubated in the Harvard Innovation Lab. The Somerville-based company — with offices around the world — has used its technology in a number of spheres, with projects in education, cognitive training, fitness, and wellness. In addition to developing brain-machine interface (BMI) technology for prosthetics, BrainCo researchers have been working to address the issue of student engagement in the classroom. “How efficient are you with the time and content you have when it comes to studying?” Max Newlon, President of BrainCo, USA, asked students during a campus visit this fall. “You can study longer, but how can you study better? How do you quantify focus?”

With their pioneering “Focus 1” EEG headbands, BrainCo has endeavored to do just that: find a way to effectively measure student focus and engagement. The bands work by detecting electrical signals as they make their way from the wearer’s brain to the skin. Super sensitive sensors pick up on those signals, which can indicate how engaged or focused a student is at any given time.

At CSW, however, the bands will be used not to measure engagement, but relaxation and meditation, allowing students to use real-time neurofeedback to witness how their brain shifts in response to various mindfulness lessons and techniques. CSW is the first school in the United States that will be using the brain bands in this capacity.

“This partnership will illuminate the impact of mindfulness education and support our school’s efforts to measure and improve upon our educational programming,” says Jen Quest-Stern, Director of Community Health and Counseling and Grade 10 PACE Program Coordinator. “Through questionnaires offered before, during, and after student use of the headbands, along with classroom conversations, CSW and BrainCo will be able to measure how mindfulness education affects students.”

Before outfitting students with their bands in October, Max addressed a number of common questions and concerns. He made clear that the Focus 1 headbands cannot read your mind. They also can’t identify anybody — the bands CSW is using, and the info they send, is completely anonymous, and none of the data is retained long-term. And lastly, the bands cannot read or detect emotions.

When it was time to put the headbands into action, five volunteers went to the front of the classroom to try out their new gear. Putting the bands on was easy; it took less than five minutes for all students to be up and running. Each student’s band had an easily visible indicator light on the front that showed whether or not the band was accurately placed, and, once initiated, the level of focus each student was exhibiting. A red light meant a student was very focused, a blue light meant they were more relaxed and disengaged, and yellow meant they were somewhere in the middle.

While the students were wearing their bands, Max projected the company’s FocusEdu software platform on a large screen so that the audience could observe feedback from the headbands in real time. He then led the class through an interactive game, in which the student volunteers were challenged to bring down their average level of engagement. As the students endeavored to disconnect and relax by closing their eyes and taking deep breaths, a gauge on the screen showed how their average level of focus and stimulation began to decrease. To make things more fun, as the students relaxed, new trees would populate an animated forest scape scene on the screen.

"This partnership will illuminate the impact of mindfulness education and support our school’s efforts to measure and improve upon our educational programming."

that with time, instruction, and practice, they will eventually be able to more substantially settle their brain activity with increased efficiency and speed. In this way, students will be able to directly quantify the impact of their learning through the course of the “Mind-Body Connections” curriculum. The ultimate goal is for students to develop skills in meditation, relaxation, and other stress-reducing techniques they can use for the rest of their lives.

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