The Competitive Edge

Ariel Garten is a neuroscientist, psychotherapist, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Muse, the clinical grade EEG headband that has helped over 500,000 people train their brains through real time neurofeedback. Her work sits at the intersection of consciousness research and consumer technology, with hundreds of published studies and collaborations spanning Mayo Clinic doctors, cancer care patients, and Tibetan monks in the Himalayas.In this episode, Ariel explains how consciousness research has moved from lab settings to your living room through devices like Muse. She walks through how neurofeedback translates brain activity into real time audio feedback, helping meditators catch mind wandering and strengthen their attentional loop. The conversation covers measurable EEG differences between meditation styles, the new Muse S Athena that combines EEG with functional near infrared spectroscopy for a new form of neurofeedback that works with eyes open, how AI is transforming brain data analysis, and why meditation