2742: Can Music Make You Smarter? The Science Behind Brain-Boosting Sound

29:20The sounds themselves get the brain to operate in a way that mirrors what you would see in a scan if you were looking at someone who's enjoying the workout. Totally. Or who's focused on reading something that they really like or who's meditating or whatever. So it's literally telling the brain through sounds, and sounds have a very profound effect on the brain if you just know how to engineer them. it's making the brain operate as if you were which then makes you what about it's a lot more deliberate too with the workout version of it like it wants to get your attention and to get you focus on these sounds more to distract from what's going on with yeah your pain signal yeah so you know those those patterns that we talked about because you know sounds there's there's so many things inside of that right inside of those sounds there's a lot of how the music is comp you know, compositionally, if you like it, you know, whether it's EDM or it's, you know, heavy metal or whatever.

30:16But inside of that is that pattern that we talked about before. And remember that we can adjust that pattern per user and per track. And when you're working out, you already have a lot more blood flow going on. So we can ramp that up even higher, which gives you that effect even more. Another way to think about what we do is plugging in and plugging out, right? When you focus, when you work out, you're trying to plug in, you're trying to get jazzed up, you're trying to do something, right? And then when you want to relax, you're trying to plug out, you're trying to not be anxious on flights, you have too much energy.

30:54And what we're doing is, again, we're shifting those patterns that shift blood flow. So we're shifting blood flow into your prefrontal cortex and we're shifting blood flow out of your prefrontal cortex, which allows us to regulate you how you feel and enhance you know your goal have you guys ever um had any studies or tested like stress hormone responses with this we haven't done um stuff like that um that now that we have this nature paper and we we were successful um and it's kind of cool because we're a small company it's it's like winning the oscar and like not many companies do this. We're like an indie film winning something.

31:32But now we're like, okay, we've done it. What's next? Right? And we have a lot of different ideas and things that we want to do our next study on. Most people don't realize that this study cost us a million dollars. When you turn on the fMRI machine, it's a quarter of a million bucks. It's expensive. Plus you've got a quarter of a million every time you just turn the fMRI. You better make sure this is a good study going into it. Well, you have controls. You have people. You have placebo. You got to, it's a, it's all, you got to do it the right way. Cause at the end of the day, we want conclusive evidence that what we're doing works and we want people to trust us and we can say, Oh yeah, do this.

32:12And all these great things and users. And that's true. We have, you know, four plus million users using us, but what's even more powerful is if you want to look at the study and want to look at it and read it yourself, you can. Right. And that's what we want. We want to be the leaders in this new functional music category and really help people just, you know, be their best. Yeah. I just immediately think about performance and I'm thinking about like getting into that sympathetic state as quickly as possible. But then also like after I'm done, like being able to recover and parasympathetic state and kind of shifting that, you know, if there's a way to do that musically through, you know, your guys' product.

32:56There's a lot of ways to hack what you guys do. People with digestive issues, listen to meditate or relax while you eat. Wake up in the morning, I'm groggy, put on a little focus, or maybe now the workout. There's a lot of ways to use this to kind of move through the day because you're not always going to be focused, or at least that's not ideal. You're not always going to be relaxed. That's always not ideal. But there are moments when those are ideal states of mind. Are you guys, because there's a lot of fMRI studies on, we can look at a brain and we can pretty reliably predict whether or not that person is feeling a particular way with at least the major feelings one of them is like being in love another one is euphoria have you guys looked into engineering music to try to induce some of these because i could see my i would be very interested like oh this is euphoria i want to see what this feels like yeah have you looked at some of this stuff too uh right now we're we're kind of really focused on activities right because we want to like i would love to make everyone euphoric but if i'm assuming if if i had a euphoria button i just press that thing all day right um so so addicts let's go uh i i think really you know the first thing is just trying to enhance and and get people to um you know unlock that part of themselves that's what we hear a lot of people say is that they're like, once I get going, I'm, I'm unstoppable, but I need that button to start.

34:21And that's where a lot of people start with us in the morning. They, they put on a motivation track, they put us on a deep work and, you know, eventually we want to make the soundtrack that if you wanted to, you can list us 24 seven. We don't expect that necessarily, but we actually already have people, um, that listen to us every night for focus or sorry, every night for sleep, right? They start their day. You know, they use this for relax, workout, you know, there's so many other things there. And there's also these really cool use cases that still are being used by people that we're not really intended for.

34:59So for example, a lot of people solve their focus problem. And maybe they don't need sleep. But they have a brand new baby yeah and they're like you know what why not i'll put sleep on and now they put it every night for their kid and that those moments are the really cool times so you guys are okay now playing it on speakers i remember for a second they're like it has to be on headphones but we experimented on the speakers and it works too yeah yeah it's it still works on on you know we're always learning new things but if you want the highest effects for focus and for workout speakers are going to be not as high as headphones but it still will work but for relax and for sleep and all those down states because it's so slow this waveform you can put on speakers no problem oh that makes sense yeah because you always were talking about how you play it for max oh yeah always that's how we use it i've always used it through a speaker even when we were told we're not supposed to talk about it like i was like it works just it works i mean obviously if you put noise canceling headphones so there's no other distractions and you're only getting that input yeah it makes sense that's the highest level you can get are you having but it's super effective with a little bow speaker but putting right towards you are you able i don't know if you're even able to comment on this but do you guys have parents uh who are using it for their kids uh who are struggling with school and hey i don't want my kid to have to go on medication are you getting users yeah yeah we get a lot of users that we have so we have a lot of people that want to use this as a first reach rather instead of going right to medication.

36:33They're saying, hey, let's try this first. And people write in, they say, oh my gosh, there's a huge difference. We have this, we have teachers playing this in classrooms, over speakers, things like that. We also have, what's really interesting too, is people that are, or kids that are very neurodiverse, right? So you're talking that they have autism or, you know, other kinds of learning disabilities and they put this on and they're like night and day. We, we, it's, it, you know, again, there's so many interesting things. Like we have a lot of like an autistic community of people that use focus to go out, to go to parties because it helps regulate how they feel, which allows them to be more social and things like that.

37:21I have family members. I need to, I need, I can't believe I haven't introduced this to it. That would, that makes a lot of sense. Wow. That's remarkable. And you're, you're, you have a friend that you yeah have you recommended no i haven't literally while he was talking i'm like i'm so gonna send that to them and get them and get their son on it before they even consider doing something like that and i could just see that that's one of the things that they like getting him to sit down and do homework and sit still for like 10 15 minutes exactly it's really tough dan off air you were talking about how you recently because you had you've talked you've told us your story on uh previous episodes of how you know you dropped out of high school and you had struggled with focus because you have adhd you said you just realized a few years ago that you had dyslexia as well?

37:59Yes. How do you figure that out a few years later? How did that discovery? So there's so many different forms, right? And actually, before I get onto this, I'll just say that, you know, what we're learning or what is not commonly told in public is that it's just a spectrum. And some people are shifted this way or this way, right? So I think it's, you know, really important for people to recognize that for, you know, different kids, right? Instead of just going to medication, let's try this because maybe they're just here. Right. And some, and not, not that medication's bad, but what if you use this in and medication?

38:40Could you take less? Could you do, you know, more, you know? And because this is not a pharmaceutical, combining it with a medication, perfectly safe. The only down effect of this, the negative effect would be you put it on too loud and it hurts your eardrums. There's no other, our brains are designed to, um, eliminate a lot of things going on. And that's actually one, again, that pattern we're trying to get through that elimination network. Right. Um, and that's again, you know, why it's effective and why there's, there's no downside from it. So back to, how did you figure out three years as an adult?

39:17Yeah. So I, you know, I, I can read fine. Um, and numbers have always been hard for me. Um, but whatever, everyone math is math is hard. Right. Um, and it wasn't until I, I was actually, I think I might've been on Tik TOK or something like that. And someone started talking about the different forms of dyslexia. And, um, I was like, wait a second. I have that. I thought that was me have like a part of ADHD and, you know, they're blended together, but I have this hard time remembering audio, right? So, you know, someone will quote a classic movie line or say a song or whatever, it doesn't work for me, right?

40:00It's so hard for me to remember facts and figures and, you know, like sports team names and things like that, like stats. I'm not a sports guy because I can't hold any of that information. And again, growing up, I just thought maybe I was dumb, right? And then finding years later that, oh, it's actually, I have dyslexia. It allowed me to like, you know, have a little bit more power over that. And I think that's, again, why my story with Brain.FM and, you know, selling everything I have so I could go all in as a user um you know that's why because it's the first thing that really worked i so you know okay this is why i'm so interested in this i had and i haven't looked into this but now i'm going to look into it i had a uh woman that was a client of mine and she was i want to say either a psychology professor or i believe she was a psychology professor and i was talking about how so i read fine no problem numbers i'm not good at math but i don't think that's an issue yeah it's hard but i'm i have the most disoriented sense of direction that i've ever heard of i've only met one other person who i would say is like me i could literally get lost by turning around and going back around and then i don't know which direction is right left he needs he needs the the map quest to get out of his neighborhood it's really bad true story it's really it's it's frustrating and she said that it's a form of dyslexia so i'm going to look into it to see what's the deal because i also have add yeah and i know that there's a kind of a crossover so there's definitely i mean some of the the most successful entrepreneurs in the world have yeah yeah um richard branson you know i name a few but you know and that's what we're like again do you have a lot of entrepreneurs that do you gotta have a huge oh huge well i imagine yeah because it attracts it attracts people with add i mean the positive thing in that because i know it's always talked about as such an in such a negative light the positive side of that you You have also the ability to crazy obsess and focus about things, right?

42:06Yeah. I mean, that's the part. That's why entrepreneurs are so much of have so many of us have that is because, oh, this could be a superpower. We're also seek out novelty, which makes us less risk averse, which is what you need as an entrepreneur. Not be so afraid to take risks. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many cool things in the whole entrepreneur landscape, like your novelty seeking, you you are trying to also make up for feeling less than a lot of it, right? And that, again, comes from maybe being told that you can't do something or you're not smart enough or whatever. And what's really one of the reasons why entrepreneurs love us so much is because to this point, they figured it out, right?

42:49They're able to function by pure will alone. But now you give them a tool that allows them to go to the next level. Yeah, we just got a, I mean, I just read a love letter, right? We get thousands of them a week. And I just read someone and they were saying how much of a change that they've had from using Brain.fm. And they're trying to create a healthcare startup that's going to try to change the world. And they're like, you are allowing me to do the thing that I need to do so I can help people. and i thought that was really cool because i've always thought of well we're just trying to help people that we're trying to change the world but we're also doing is we're helping other people compound effect change the world through the things that they make which is pretty pretty fun yeah you guys so you guys do something interesting which and we talked off air the conversion rate you guys have is insane so you guys let people try it out for free for a month yeah for 30 days for 30 days and you were saying that that at least half the people stick around yes which for anybody who's listening like when you give away something expecting a conversion 50 is you don't nobody gets 50 no no uh i think i think uh industry rates are like 30 percent you know we do the whole thing it's it's really interesting if you want to get into you like user psychology and things like that so we used to give brain fm out for free no credit card and people could just try it.

44:19But then when we did that, people were like, oh, I'll just try it later. I'll just try it later because everyone has ADHD. Right? And so what we did - That's actually really funny. You bark into those people totally wrong. It didn't work. Uh-oh. And what's really, and you see this in apps a lot where you have, you know, put in your credit card, you get seven days or 14 days or, you know, for Mind Pump listeners, you get 30. And when we did that, our conversion rate spiked because then people are like, I have to try this before it charges me. And you can cancel any time. And if it doesn't work for you, cancel.

44:54But we find is that people, when they sign up and they're motivated to try it, they'll, they'll actually sit down and be like, I'm going to try this for 60 minutes. And in that 60 minutes, their first session will be 60 or 90, or some people do it for three or four hours. Yeah. And those people go from basically zero usage to three hours, hours a day every day and they're still using us you know three four five we're coming up on 10 years you know i have yet to find anybody who i've introduced it to actually tried it that said it didn't work yes because that's what i always say to them wait 10 to 15 minutes just wait 10 to 15 minutes and then let me know and then sure enough they're like what yeah this is wild and every single one of them ends up converting are you allowed to talk about um famous people or athletes or people that are using it?

45:46I mean, you guys have users like that? Are you allowed to talk and disclose that stuff? I know we have people that have written in and shared a lot of success, but I don't have their express permission. But I will say there's a lot of people that you would recognize, right? Like some very large celebrities, some very pro athletes. And I think it's, again, it's for the high performer that wants to consistently be on their best, especially pro athletes and things like that. This is part of their repertoire. I always think of Brain.FM as a tool, but not the whole solution. So you add this with the other tools that you have.

46:30Add this with your caffeine. Add this with your energy drink. Like, add this, you know, like for me, I would I would say that like the best my best hack for me is right. Take an L-theanine, drink a cold brew, put on Brain.FM and just sit down and you're going to find this really cool effect from this energy from the caffeine and then guiding that energy from Brain.FM. And the results are really remarkable. What's the Pomodoro effect or what is that? I see that in your notes. Yeah. What is that exactly? So Pomodoro is this very widely known method of focusing where you focus for, I believe it's 20 or 25 minutes on, and then you take a five-minute break.

47:13So just back and forth. Back and forth, back and forth. Oh, okay. And that's really good for people with ADHD that working on a task for 90 minutes is really hard and scary. um the thing is though that that a lot of people think that that's the best most optimal way to work and i would say that's really good for monotonous tasks you just have to get through but for really deep work like developing or or um writing we have a ton of writers i think 90 minutes 60 to 90 minute blocks is really the best because by the time you are right about in that flow state why would you leave yeah why would you stop it well i think that's that strategy was used without brain fm right that's typically what we figured we found is most people's tension span was really strong in the first 20 minutes and then they trail off and so you're better off bringing up but that's assuming you don't have a tool like this you have a tool like this and 20 minutes now becomes 60 90 minute blocks that are far more successful that's really cool that's a selling point and a half by that because i've seen the studies and stuff that say that.

48:21What about, uh, like, you know, when you have a bunch of tasks to do, do the one you hate the most or the hardest one first, get that one out of the way. Yep. You, you have in your notes that that's a myth. Explain that. No, I was saying, uh, so in my notes, uh, a lot of people think they have to work on their hardest tasks. That's what I mean. Yeah. The one that's the hardest first. So, so that's really hard because you're basically like, okay, I got to write this chapter or do whatever. and what happens is you just stare at the screen right and one of the best ways to get started is to start the dopamine right oh good point that's what you want to do so if i have to start with anything that's the hardest i'm less likely to want to start a lot of resistance you should all i mean so all all focus is is is very is controlling energies energy management right but it's also learning how our brains and our bodies work.

49:12And while you certainly want to do your most intensive tasks on Monday morning, right? If you just cold start, just like going to the gym and doing a deadlift, you don't just, yeah, you don't max out, right? You got to warm it up. You got to give your, your body or your brain in this case, some dopamine. So what I'll usually do is I go through my day and I go, okay, this is the number one thing I have to do. It's a right B C D and E right and then i'll just do d for 20 minutes first i get that away i already won something cool and then here's the thing then you lock in yeah you have to lock in because a lot of people will answer those five emails they have to do and then go to start their writing thing but in today's world they'll be like oh let me just reward myself by scrolling on tiktok ruined yeah you only have 60 seconds to switch into the next activity to keep that going.

50:09So you really want to start off with something small, like an appetizer, right? Get yourself ready. And, but you have to stay in that focus zone and then immediately switch in that, that harder task. And you're going to find it a lot easier to stay consistent and build, um, you know, productive work. That's interesting. I, what comes to mind for me when I think of like my days and it would be like, knock out the quick open email stuff, right? Get to my emails real quick and answer, respond, whatever, cash out. Yep. And then that's like kind of, cause it's easy. It's mundane. Takes me probably 20 minutes if I do it every day.

50:42Yep. And then lock into the thing that I got to really get it. But I want to be ready to go right away. So you don't want to delay minutes or a long time. It's like, you want to have that big task ready to go so you can transition right into it. Totally. And you want something that you know you can hit. So, you know, email works for some people. because they're like, yep, like clockwork. Other people, they open their email and it's like, I don't know, it could be 10 minutes, it could be three hours. So you really want to find that task that you have to do that's just like doing a warmup rep. How are users finding you?

51:15I mean, I know we talk about you guys, but how are you reaching out? Because I'm always tripping. I'm like, you know, 4 million users is a lot, but I'm like, why isn't it, you know, 40 million? Like this is so, again, if you try this, if you're listening, you try it, it blows your mind. It's really weird. Are you self-funded? What's the funding like with you guys? We did a, what is it called? A safe note. So like a pre-seed funding round. But now we're completely bootstrapped and we're scaling on top of that. What you see is companies like Binaural Beats, which have got hundreds of millions of dollars behind them that are probably pumping ads at a loss just so they can get people, right?

51:55Well, you know what? it's actually funny because a lot of the there there's not a lot of funding in binaural beats it's just there's so many copycats that they all look the same oh interesting so when you compare us to you know i can name like 20 binaural beat companies they all are you know basically trying to steal each other's lunch and that looks like hey but what's really interesting what's been helpful for us is it's still showing people that there's music made for focus and then eventually they try us too and they go wow and they stay with us um our biggest source right now is where their mouth is still and it always is um and what's really cool is internationally we're really starting to grow that's cool so um you know obviously this works in any language it's it's music right oh good point yeah any studies you want to fund or you know that you would love to maybe do?

52:48Oh man, so many. I would love to, I mean, first, I think a lot of the wearable stuff that we want to do would be really, really cool. Again, there's, there's some really cool wearables coming out. Like, you know, if you're or ring, you have Apple watch, those are, those are some cool stuff. But you also have EEG stuff where it's these, these things that we, we actually are in all of our experiments but now they're like putting it down into um very small form factors um you also have f nears which is um it's a headband and it's it's shooting a laser like a like a um uh very very tiny um um penetration into your um skull your skull and it's just reading the blood flow like from like the a few millimeters in and it can estimate how focused you are.

53:37Like there's a ton of really cool integration stuff there. I think there's also really cool stuff and like the wearable and fitness component. Like I, I remember talking to you and you're like, do a study with CGMs. Yeah. Right. Um, and there's, there's a lot, there's, there's actually so much, you know, and what we're trying to always balance is how do we, you know, stay focused, right? It's really ironic. I own a focus company and I need to stay focused. Right. And, and that's actually what's been allowing us to grow and succeed. This year we've, we've doubled in size. Oh wow. And it's really because we're focusing on very specific, you know, problems.

54:17And this problem right now is how can we help people focus no matter where you are in the world, no matter, you know, where, where you are in the spectrum, right. And we want to help you. And I think the next one is probably now going after people with insomnia or panic attacks. If you were to give me, I'm assuming that what led you guys to that, you probably put it on a pie chart say last year and said, this is our greatest piece of the pie. So is that right? 70 % of people that come to us is focused right now. Wow. See, that's so interesting for me because I'm more of the sleep guy as far as how I use it.

54:52Although I use it for focus. So you guys, 70 % are focused. A big part of it too though, Adam, is that you and I, well, most of us don't do the kind of work but we have to sit there and focus oh yeah no if i do is in here and this is pretty engaging and you know um so but if i was like when i used to write our content i would use no we all have you know it makes sense when you know i just like what a what a brilliant thing in an era where i mean i remember reading like just a decade or two ago the attention span of the average person and like you know what it's down to now like it yeah it used to be like a minute then it was like 30 seconds there's like 15 i think it's like six seconds now you have to get grab somebody's attention and we're in this attention war right like that's more valuable than money today is grabbing people's attention yep which is also another way of saying we're distracted like so we're massively distracted as a this is a species in a society and so you guys coming out with something or focusing on something well that helps people stay not distracted and stay focused Here's the thing too, because of the way that it's training the brain, even without playing the music, your brain now gets into these states easier.

56:05Because it's moving the blood flow, because it's conditioning the mind or the brain through these sounds, you have an effect that lasts in between listening to it. So use it regularly. You're more focused even when you don't use it, which I think is very interesting. Totally. Very cool. Dan, this is great. Thanks for coming back on, man. Always a pleasure. We appreciate what you guys do. Easy to talk about you guys. Can't wait to try the workout. Of course, yeah. I mean, for all Mind Pump listeners, if you go to brain.fm slash Mind Pump, you guys are going to get the extended 30 days, right? And also, you can try Focus, all the other activities, and you'll automatically be signed up for beta.

56:44And we're looking for feedback, right? This isn't finished, but we want to hear people from cardio. We also want to hear workouts, weightlifting. I had my PR for deadlift while listening to it. So it works for both. What'd you do? I hit nothing compared to you guys, but I hit 415. That's great. That's a big deadlift, dude. Great job, dude. That's awesome. That's awesome. So it's brain.fm forward slash mind pump. Yes. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com.

57:23The RGB Super Bundle includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a 5-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family.

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