This Chair Forces You to Meditate

Meditation is having a super big moment—a major plus for relaxation, and a minor source of frustration for those of us who want to get into it, but just can’t shut off our brains and take a moment.

Dr. Dan Cohen has been there too. The neurologist is probably best-known for creating those Breathe Right Nasal Strips, and now, he has a brand-new spa-meets-wellness-meets-relaxation-meets-sleep-better invention that he’s bringing to market that, at its very core, helps your brain take a breather.

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Coined the SolTec Lounge, on first glance, the chair looks like a really comfortable, really modern lounger—think NASA-sleek—where you can throw up your feet and get cozy. But, as Dr. Cohen explains, it’s way more—its features include sounds, vibrations, magnetic energy and technology that literally enable people to “shut off their brains.”

Sounds out-there, but hear him out: “Synchronized sound and vibration cause areas of the brain responsible for maintaining too high a level of vigilance (the stress response) to be inhibited. This automatically produces a profound state of relaxation. The synchronized magnetic field therapy stimulates the human energy system, causing greater integration with the physical body, which results in positive physical, emotional, mental and energetic effects. By experiencing and learning what this profound state of relaxation feels like, we can learn to reproduce this feeling much of the time.”

I tried a 20-minute session, and even being hopped up on three big cups of coffee, I totally zoned out—almost to the point of sleep—and felt a lot more relaxed than I typically do for the remainder of the day (and I slept really well that night). The Lounge basically delivers percussion-like beats and vibrations as you listen to a whole bunch of different melodies through headphones (think piano chords, mixed with drums, intertwined with birds chirping every now and then—a random sampling of music that Dr. Cohen says has the ability to make you “defocus” because it’s so confusing and not something your brain can really follow). Plus, he adds that it’s the type of thing that, the more you do it, the better you’ll get at relaxing and reducing stress.

Right now, the distributors of SolTec see the chair as part of relaxation rooms at spas, as add-ons to spa treatments or even having a big place in office culture to serve as a source for overall wellness and stress reduction. You can also buy the chair for $3,400 for at-home use—a price that seems pretty reasonable considering you have a very good chance of catching up on your sleep just by sitting in it.