A Chat With Nik Ershov, CEO at Mind Tracker Device And Wellness App: Waverox

Tell us about Waverox

Waverox is a mind tracker device and wellness app based on EEG monitoring technology, helping boost productivity and combat stress, allowing users to achieve their most ambitious goals without sacrificing their mental health.

Key features: 

•  Monitoring: helps to raise brain functioning awareness
•  Productivity tool: assists in developing personalized work and rest rhythms 
•  Biofeedback alpha training: helps develop stress resilience and pull the emergency brake in urgent emotional situations to switch gears.

How did you come up with the idea for Waverox devices?

The idea came as a result of two problems I needed to solve for myself. First, I always do everything to the max. I couldn’t allow myself and my teams to produce mediocre results; I just couldn’t.  My second problem was never being able to say no to anyone: colleagues, customers, family, you name it. I have a habit of stretching myself too thin and using up all of my reserves.

On top of all of this, the pandemic remote work mode, when you have no barriers at all between work and personal life, really is what pushed me to my limit. You just wake up, eat breakfast, work and go to bed. At some point, I noticed that I was totally burned out. I had no energy, persistent anxiety, no ability to focus and felt deeply depressed. Even my lifehack of taking a month-long vacation to recover stopped helping. I started researching different techniques – how I could structure my life to avoid burnout and stay productive and focused over the long haul, even with a very stressful 300% job. I tried to switch in different ways – parties, active vacations, mountain hikes, but nothing gave long-term results, after a couple of months of active work, my pace burnout had returned. 

It became clear to me that without understanding how my brain works and learning how to manage it more effectively, it would be impossible to cope.

I dived into the studies of how the brain works and ways of tracking and maybe even adapting it to my lifestyle. Brain activity is controlled by the synchronous work of many neurons. Like tiny generators, they produce electrical oscillations with frequencies and amplitudes that can be tracked with electroencephalography (EEGs). 

Scientists call these electrical oscillations brain activity rhythms. To obtain these rhythms, researchers put a cap with specifically located electrodes with wires  on an individual’s head. The wires touch the electroconductive gel covering the scalp, registering electrical impulses produced by our neurons. The electroencephalograph amplifies the signals of these impulses and records them in a сomputer or any other device for further processing with algorithms. These impulses are what indicate our sleeping, waking, tiredness, and inspiration. Observing and studying them helps us better understand how our memory, attention, and mind work.

It was around this time that I met a group of talented scientists and engineers in Dubai who were developing electroencephalographic devices for various companies. I had the idea to make a convenient product based on headphones — a regular device that we all use every day, which would monitor brain activity in real-time, give biofeedback and help everyone use their brains consciously.

How has Waverox evolved over the last year?

We started this year from scratch, gathered tech and neuroscience enthusiasts from all over the globe and developed a product that we hope will help people understand their brain better and cope with burnout,  which more than 42% of global office workers are suffering from.

Throughout this year, it has become obvious to me personally that the mind tracker we developed is becoming a valuable tool for observing and analyzing brain rhythms. Not only does it read them, but it also processes complex data and transforms it into comprehensible metrics that give users a deeper, more useful understanding of their brain activity. Moreover, we added an alpha-training component to make sure users can easily learn how to control their brain through the mind tracker. This training is the cornerstone of becoming mindful and controlling your alpha rhythms.

In a group of 300 beta users, we received a lot of positive feedback which encouraged us to continue further — 70% of users experienced less stress after using our devices for a month.

What to expect from Waverox in the future?

I call it 3B – better experience in the app, better understanding of personal tiredness (key reasons), better training to drive productivity and improve sleep. Our goal is to become a product of daily use in the background or in training mode for people who regularly use headphones.

We want to give people the opportunity to observe their mental state or psychophysiological state over long tearm Doing so can help them gain more productivity in our fast-paced world as well as protect themselves from burnout, anxiety disorder and depression.,  In the long run, the goal is for everyone who cares about their mental health to use our headphones and become more productive and a bit happier.