Week Eight with the Modius Headset
March 24: Modius updated their app again, and now the battery shows as properly filled when the headset is fully charged.
Even though my weight continues to fluctuate by a pound or two, my fat percentage has continued to drop. Bear in mind that my weight never needed to go down much; I’m 5’11”, and I currently have a BMI of 21.1. My waist is now 27.5″, and my hips are 38.5″, so they’ve both dropped another half-inch — without me even trying.
Concluding My Modius Headset Experience
So what have I learned in the past 8 weeks while using the Modius headset? Well, for one — I’ve learned to look forward to the hour that I spend with the headset on. Sometimes I’ll lie down and read while I’m wearing it, or I’ll sit at my computer and work; it’s a nice feeling while it’s doing its thing. Since I didn’t change my eating or exercising habits, I didn’t honestly expect to see a huge change in my weight, and I think my results have borne that out. My weight has gone up a tiny bit from when I started, and so has my fat percentage.
Remember — this is where I was when I started …
And this is where I am today …
However! I have lost 1.5″ on both my waist and my hips. According to the things I have read in the Modius Life FB group, some people don’t see real changes until the 12th week or so, but I only had 8 weeks to make it happen. I’ve love to be able to do a longer test period just to see if there were further changes. I feel like I’m right at the sweet spot where things really start happening — I mean, I am losing inches!
I am a little bit worried about what will happen when I am not using the Modius headset every day again; will my insomnia come back? Will my stress levels rise again? For that reason alone, I am going to buy one. I can 100% vouch for the fact that better sleep and less stress are possible with this headset, and they should include this in their marketing. Even if you don’t need to lose any weight, it’s a fabulous benefit.
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I had the opportunity to interview Jason McKeown, CEO, and co-founder of Modius, and he was able to answer my questions about Modius and my experience while using it:
Judie: I’ve noticed that some days I feel the distinct tapping as I do my Modius session, while on others I feel more of a swishing feeling. Is one sensation more correct than the other? How important is proper placement of the pads?
Jason: If you can feel the gentle swaying feeling at the start of your Modius session then the device is certainly causing activation of the deeper parts of the brain, which is exactly what we want it to do. The tapping you refer to sounds like the feeling of the electrical stimulation that alternates from one side of your head to the other. Often, we only feel the pricks or tapping on one side of the head – that is completely normal. Pad placement is important. As long as the pads are located on your mastoid bone (behind the ear) then you will be stimulating the vestibular nerve which sits underneath that bone, but it sounds like you are in the right spot given the sway sensation.
Judie: Are there any plans to tie Modius in with Apple or Google Health? The reason I’m interested in this feature is that those apps aggregate information from a variety of sources to give a bigger picture of the user’s health; doing so might give the user a better idea of how Modius is helping them. For instance, if the Modius app could factor in calories taken in (through apps like MyFitnessPal), activity and/or steps taken (from fitness trackers), sleep (from sleep trackers), heart rate (from fitness trackers) and weight and fat percentage (from scales that measure it), it seems like Modius would be able to collect better information for and on the users to see what outside facts might be influencing their looses or — in some cases — gains.
Jason: Medium term, we are planning to integrate into other health and fitness apps but this is likely to be later in the year.
Judie: Right now, waist measurements are the only ones taken by the Modius app. Because I am a classic pear — one of those people who is tiny all the way to my waist, carrying most of my body fat in my butt and thighs — I think that adding the option to enter those measurements might be more helpful for people like me. Are there any plans to add hips or thighs to the measurement options?
Jason: We are actually working with a company at the moment that can determine body composition from a number of photo images and plan to launch this mid to late 2018.
Judie: I’ve noticed after the first couple of weeks using Modius that my time to fall asleep has *drastically* dropped. I used to suffer from terrible insomnia, but now I’m OUT within a couple of minutes of my head hitting the pillow. I’m also noticing (at about 6 weeks in) that my stress levels have lowered; I’m able to roll with things that would have set me off in the past. Is this normal? Is Modius actually having a positive effect on sleep and lessening my stress levels? How is that even possible? Or is this some weird placebo effect?
Jason: We have received a great deal of feedback along these lines, and this is something we actually expected. Vestibular stimulation is known to generate the soporific effect, which basically means it will help people sleep. This all happens due to the neural pathways that are activated by vestibular stimulation – and it’s also responsible for the relaxed or de-stressed feeling.
Judie: I’ve enjoyed lurking in the Modius Life community on Facebook. While reading through other users’ posts, I’ve noticed that a few don’t notice a lot of benefits until after week 12 or so when it seems like “something” kicks in, and they see their scales move. For some, it takes even longer. Q. What words of advice would you offer for someone who is using Modius, who is eating and exercising in a reasonable manner, but not really seeing any changes on their scale or fat percentage — beyond “keep using Modius every day”?
Jason: We encourage users to keep measurements and take photographs, think about the other benefits you may be noticing such as deeper sleep, de-stressed, amongst others, as well as encouraging users to really listen to their body with things such as a curbing of the appetite and drinking more water if that’s what your body craves.
Judie: Is there any chance, even offhand, that using Modius might have negative effects?
Jason: Vestibular stimulation has been studied for almost 50 years now and it has always been deemed to be safe. A good way to think about the potential side effects would be to ask the question… ‘What side effects would I get from doing more physical activity?’ as this is the part of the brain that gets stimulated. So, the ‘side effects’ tend to be positive (as with physical activity) like better sleep, improved mood etc. Specifically, with the device, a small percentage of people might get a little itch or dry skin if they were sensitive to the pads. This is probably less than 1% of people, however.
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The Modius Headset retails for $499, and it is available directly from the manufacturer.
Source: Manufacturer supplied review sample on loan
What I Like: Easy to set up; Comfortable to wear; No wires, so you can get up and move while wearing the headset; I don’t know how or why, but it has cured my insomnia — when I want to go to bed, I can and do; It has been helping with my stress levels; I lost 1.5″ from my waist and hips while using the Modius headset — without changing my diet or exercise; 90-day return window — you can use it and see if it works for you, and this should be enough time to notice a change, even if only in your sleep and stress levels: Excellent Facebook support community which includes well-informed moderators and plenty of actual, real-time users
What Needs Improvement: It would be nice if the Modius app synced with Apple Health or other weight-tracking apps so that you didn’t have to manually enter your weight each day; You can’t go back in and add measurements or fat percentage on previous weight entries, I would like there to be an edit option; I’d like there to be an option to add other measurements, such as hips, in the weight tracker; Some people may have a sensitivity to the sticky electrode pads; It can take up to 12 weeks before you really notice any changes — My inch loss “magically” appeared at week 7, although my weight and fat percentage haven’t really changed
