Review: mind Wave

Now here's an app that has left me humming... mind Wave uses binaural tones to induce relaxation, increase concentration or aid sleep! You can find out more information about binaural tones here. Slip on some headphones, fire up mind Wave and listen your way to a different mood or state of relaxation.

Functionality

Launching mind Wave brings you to some instruction screens, one of which urges you to use headphones for the fullest experience. I can vouch for this. Make sure you use headphones. It sounds terrible if you just listen through the iPhone speakers, and you'll be tempted to immediately delete the app. Once your headphones are safely tucked into your canals, you'll see that the app has three main buttons across the bottom: Tones, Timer, and Visual Stimulation. Tapping on Tones brings you to the list of tones provided with the app which include:

• Study Aid
• Sleep Induction
• Relaxation
• Deep Meditation
• Mental Refreshed
• Coffee
• Creativity Boost
• Focusing Attention
• Weightloss
• Headache Treatment

While I am only a reviewer and am certainly NOT knowledgeable on binaural tones, I would heartily recommend that you not tempt fate and try using "Sleep Induction" while driving.

You can set how long to listen to the tones on the timer option, and even add visual stimulation, which supposedly does something to your brain waves. I listened to "Coffee" and got... well, nothing. Of course, I'd already had three cups of coffee, so perhaps the binaural tone was decaf. I tried several others, for as long as 10 minutes, and on most, I simply felt, well, bored. I did feel relaxed when I was listening to "Relaxation," but I was also spread out on my couch, with my eyes closed... So did the app help, or was it the nap posture?

Review

I was prepared to tank this app in a review until I showed it to my wife, and she played with it a while. As soon as the "Deep Meditation" started up, her eyes lit up, and she said, "Wow. This is wonderful." She tried several others and though a few seemed to have no effect, others produced a profound sense of relaxation.

She even used the app to go to sleep instead of watching TV the other night. I was confounded by her experience, because I can't seem to even hypnotize myself into experiencing the benefits of the app like she can.

Because of our varied experiences, I have to suggest that this app may just be a wonderful little tool to have in your mental arsenal. I wish the app had a trial version so that the user could see if it worked with them. At this point, it's a $1.99 aural gamble.

Summary

For an app that purports to bring such amazing benefits, this may be a purchase you have to make. For only $1.99, it may be worth having an instant "Coffee" or "Study Aid" at your disposal. It's one of those apps that works on you, instead of you interacting with it. If its benefits are to be believed, you may be hearing your way into a better state of mind.

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