Muse Athena adds Deep Sleep Boost for smarter overnight recovery
Muse just dropped a new feature for the Athena headband called Deep Sleep Boost. It tracks your brainwaves while you sleep and plays sounds at just the right moment to help you stay in deep sleep longer.
Deep Sleep Boost works with your brain
This isn’t about calming bedtime stories or generic white noise. Deep Sleep Boost detects slow-wave sleep with EEG in real time and delivers pink-noise pulses that are phase-timed to the user’s actual brain oscillations. These pulses are designed to gently reinforce slow-wave activity, the part of sleep most tightly linked to physical recovery, memory consolidation and long-term brain health.
In my review of the Athena headband I found it feels familiar to earlier Muse models but packs noticeably more detail under the hood, with upgraded EEG sensors and the addition of fNIRS for tracking both brain activity and how hard your brain is working during sessions. The sleep tracking was accurate and detailed, with clear visualisations of brainwaves and solid overall performance night after night.
What’s new here is not just sound during sleep, but smart, adaptive stimulation based on the exact timing of brainwaves. That level of precision is what Muse believes sets it apart from traditional sound-based sleep tools.
The science behind it isn’t new, but now it’s usable
Closed-loop audio stimulation has been around in research for years. Trials have shown that when delivered correctly, these cues can boost slow-wave activity by as much as 50 percent and improve memory retention overnight by around 20 percent. One Alzheimer’s study saw a 60 percent increase in time spent in deep sleep using similar stimulation protocols.
Muse has essentially translated this into a real-world feature for nightly use. According to the company, their AI models were trained on large-scale EEG datasets and refined using years of longitudinal brain data from Muse users. The goal was to bring clinical insight into a consumer setting, without the clunky lab gear.
The system is also modular. Muse users can combine Deep Sleep Boost with other features like Sleep Assist, which plays EEG-guided sounds to help users fall asleep faster, or pair it with Sleep Sounds like “Ocean Stillness.” Everything runs inside the same mobile app, with an option to preview results the next day.
It’s designed to help with depth, not just duration
Many people sleep long enough but still wake up groggy. Muse is aiming at the quality side of the equation. Deep sleep tends to decline with age, stress, or irregular routines, and boosting it without drugs or wearables that just guess at your sleep stage is a tough problem. That’s where Muse’s EEG tracking and adaptive timing come in.
The feature only kicks in once you’ve actually reached deep sleep. A visual in the app shows a confirmation: “Will be active when you reach deep sleep.” It also tracks how many times it triggered during the night and displays that next to your sleep staging and slow-wave intensity score the following morning.
The system supports customization too. Protocol 7 is the current preset, but the app offers advanced settings for intensity and timing. Muse recommends using wired headphones for the most accurate audio timing, though the experience still works wirelessly.
Included for free with Athena
Deep Sleep Boost is already live and free for anyone using a Muse S Athena, whether you’re on Android or iPhone. It’s part of Muse’s bigger Sleep by Design toolkit, which also includes features like the upcoming Smart Alarm and the Enso AI coach. The idea is to go beyond just tracking sleep and actually help improve it using real brain data.
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