Soothing Sound and Gentle Vibrations Effortlessly Guide You into Deep and Mindful Meditation.

Your stress will melt away as you drift deeper and deeper into mindful rest. Feel completely refreshed.

Book a Session and Melt Your Stress Away
Are you interested in booking a Mindful Chair™ session for yourself or small group? Do you represent a corporation that wants to increase productivity through stress reduction management for employees? Then we've designed The Mindful Chair with you in mind.
How Does the Mindful Chair Work?

 

Since the days of our early ancestors we have been endowed with a nervous system that has a built-in, hard-wired survival mechanism. With this mechanism we are always scanning our environment for potential danger, consciously and subconsciously. This mechanism is supported primarily by three of our senses – sight, hearing, and touch.

During a session your senses of sight, hearing and touch are quieted producing a brain state of inattention. You are instructed to close your eyes and deeply relax or fall asleep.

As a result, your visual system receives no stimulus. The Mindful Chair™ consists of a comfortable, manually recline-able, seating platform containing an amplifier and transducers that produce sound (music), vibration and magnetic stimulation. Multi-layered music is provided, although any music can be used. We recommend music that has sufficient bass to produce a reasonable amount of vibration. Multiple melodies play simultaneously, causing the music to fade into the distance as you develop a profoundly relaxed and inattentive state of being.

The relatively constant sound and vibration cause the neural circuitry associated with hearing and touch to become habituated – to stop attending to the stimuli. Reducing the activity of the neural circuitry related to sight, hearing and touch, which supports your survival mechanism causes you to become far less vigilant or tense and as a result you become more relaxed and drift into a deep meditative state.

There is one more stimulus we provide that is exceedingly beneficial. We provide synchronized magnetic field stimulation. Our experimental work over the past 25 years has allowed us to affect an even greater relaxation response and meditative states when magnetic stimulation with full spectrum audio frequencies are combined.

The Mindful Chair Frequently Asked Questions

How long are Mindful Chair™ sessions?

Session length typically ranges from 15 to 50 minutes. The two most popular lengths are 30 and 55 minutes, which works well for regular half-hour and hourly scheduling purposes. Usage following other services, such as massage or chiropractic treatment tends to be 30 minutes, while sessions offered by a variety of practitioners for more therapeutic purposes tend to be 55 minutes. Regardless of length of session, the client is usually deeply relaxed afterwards, such that we recommend a wake-up period of 5 to 10 minutes before the client drives.

Is this like meditation?

Yes. Meditation and sessions in Mindful Chair are both intended to calm the mind. However, many meditative practices use the mind (mantra, mental focus or intention) in an attempt to quiet the mind. Mindful Chair sessions are designed to induce a profoundly relaxed state of being that also confers a deep meditative state, by bypassing the mind altogether. It is a far simpler practice that tends to yield dramatically greater levels of relaxation than meditative practices and also tends to move users into a deep meditative state much faster.

What are the instructions for use?

1. Allow yourself to drift off towards sleep (due to the music and vibration it is unlikely that even if you fall asleep you will stay asleep).

2. Whenever you have a thought, feel your body (vibrations) and then drift off again.

3. If you have another thought, repeat step 2.

What should I do during a session?

Do nothing other than follow the instructions. Doing typically reinforces the tendencies of one’s ego. Use of the Mindful Chair™ is designed to put the ego to sleep, as it is the ego which creates the stress in one’s life with its programming, rules and coping strategies/defense mechanisms. Don’t do, simply be. Remember to feel your body whenever you have a thought. This technique dramatically shifts one from the thinking brain to a feeling state of being without thought.

What can a person expect to experience during a session?

The first session is often described as a get to know me session, as there is curiosity about this technology and “what it is going to do to me.” Therefore, the client typically is able to drop their guard more completely after the first session. Regardless, the client, during the first session, will still experience a deep level of relaxation.

With subsequent sessions, the state of relaxation deepens and the client will be able to experience and later recreate the level of physiologic relaxation that occurs when they are asleep or nearly asleep. This is about as relaxed a state as can be achieved. As the user becomes more proficient in achieving a state of being (non-thinking), the normal perception of time changes and it seems as if time passes very quickly. Many users remark that the session (even 55 minutes) felt like 10 or 15 minutes.

It is best to approach each session without any specific expectation and instead, simply be open, receptive and allow yourself to drift away.

How long do the effects last?

The effects are typically observable for a day or two, depending upon the length of the session.

How often should a person do a session?

It depends upon the benefits that the client seeks. More frequent use will produce more sustained and long-lasting results. We find that users that intend to significantly reduce or eradicate stress in their lives will use the technology 2 or more times per week. A growing number of our users use it almost daily for the long term benefits it confers.

Are there more permanent effects if the technology is used more regularly?

Mindful Chair™ is a transformational technology. When used more regularly - you will change. When stress and your reaction to stressors is reduced or eliminated, you will perceive your life and your circumstances differently. User’s frequently remark that their lives are different and that they have a better understanding of themselves and their lives in general. Stress takes a significant toll on the body and mind. It saps one’s energy. Regular users often report that they sleep less. This results from the fact that they use less energy during the day as they’re not giving it up to stress. Also, with less worry, it is easier to fall asleep and stay asleep, so one’s sleep pattern can become more consolidated and restorative.

Regular users report that they are happier. That seems obvious given a more stress-free existence, but it is more than that. With regular use and a letting down of one’s defense mechanisms, there is a far greater tendency to become more authentic as a human being. User’s report greater compassion and in general all of their feeling nature becomes enhanced, physically, emotionally and intuitively. This doesn’t happen overnight, but it does occur with regular use over months and years.

How long has this technology been in use?

The technology has been available for purchase and consumer use since 2013.

Are there any known side effects or reactions?

At this time, we are unaware of any negative side effects. However, in clients with certain issues (PTSD, chronic pain and depression) there have been a variety of cathartic reactions that were reported. These cathartic events (releases) are considered to be beneficial and the client themselves often describe them as such.

Have any clinical studies been performed?

Yes, there is published Mayo Clinic study on the benefits and applications of the technology.

During the protracted development phase (1997 thru 2013) many subjects were tested and at times physiologic measurements (heart rate, brainwave analysis) were taken. These sessions demonstrated profound levels of relaxation (self-report from users) and physiologic measurements that were consistent with that state - lowered heart rate and brainwaves in the alpha and theta frequency range – were recorded.

Additional research on the relaxation effects as well as on specific medical conditions is being conducted at this time.

What is the typical charge per session?

When used as a standalone service, charges typically range from $15 to $60 depending upon session duration.

What is the cost of a unit?

Mindful Chair™ retails for $3,199-$3,899 depending on options. Units are available in light gray and black. Shipping is $300.

How does it work - what is the theory of operation?

The most basic and unarguably the most important function of the brain is to serve our survival instinct, since nothing else matters unless we are alive. Our survival instinct is manifested by those senses that allow us to consciously and subconsciously survey our environment for possible danger. The senses utilized in this effort are sight, hearing and touch. Unfortunately, far too many of us live in a hypervigilant and hyper-stimulated state of being, resulting in excessive levels of stress with cascading neurochemical and pathophysiologic mechanisms causing a myriad of medical and psychological maladies. It is for this reason that we have developed technology to reset our biochemistry and physiology back to a healthy baseline condition. Mindful ChairTM is designed to induce a profoundly deep state of relaxation and meditation to do just that.

It is recommended that Mindful Chair™ be used in a darkened room with eyes closed, thereby eliminating vision. We play multi-layered music that is pleasant, but relatively difficult to follow. Typically, the brain ignores such stimuli and as a result neurologically, that area of the brain habituates to the constancy of the musical stimulus and becomes dormant. The technology also creates a wide spectrum of vibratory frequencies that are felt throughout the body. Again, due to the constancy of these stimuli, these brain regions similarly become inhibited. As such, all the senses that normally provide us the ability to vigilantly survey the environment for danger are turned off. With the vigilance mechanism switched off, and the user is in a safe environment; clients experiences dramatic levels of relaxation.

Our 20 years of experimentation with various levels of our technology has revealed that associated, synchronized magnetic field stimulation provides additional therapeutic effects. Our seat transducer, in addition to creating sound and vibration, creates a safe, low level, dynamic magnetic field that produces synchronized magnetic stimulation containing the frequencies in the music. Similar to the practices of acupuncture and Qigong it is our belief that the dynamic magnetic field stimulates the human energy system. However, as our technology provides broad frequency content directly to this system, it is therefore able to create sympathetic resonance, the effects of which many users report as a greater sense of presence, being grounded and more profound levels of relaxation. More impressively, since refining the magnetic stimulation approximately 10 years ago, we have also seen significant improvement in a number of medical conditions that are non-stress related. We have partnered with the Mayo Clinic to study these effects. The results have been published.

With repeated use, the user quickly learns what profound relaxation feels like. Human beings are very good at mimicking a state of being. Therefore, over time, users learn to recreate and then maintain a more stress-free state for longer and longer timeframes.

What applications are envisioned for this technology?

Stress reduction and reducing or eliminating the psychological and medical complications of stress, including stress related illnesses is the broadest application. In addition, we have witnessed significant improvement in a number of medical conditions that are not stress-related, which we plan to investigate further.

Furthermore, medical science over the past several decades has discovered that the brain is far more “plastic” (changeable), than previously thought. It is our belief, based upon some of our observations, that Mindful Chair™ can become instrumental in this process. This opens up a host of possibilities that we are very excited to explore.

Research Studies