Meditation gets interesting when the room stops cooperating.
01 / Why pressure
“If you can’t transcend the material plane’s distractions, then you’re not really meditating.”Shanta Stevens
Anyone can meditate when the room is calm and quiet. But when things are hectic and stressful, that is when you may need mindfulness the most.
Meditation Battle League turns that problem into a game: put your practice under pressure, go head-to-head, and find out what stays with you.
02 / The science
Before there was a league, a 2018 feasibility study tested an earlier Meditation Deathmatch prototype with 42 college students. After one session, the study reported lower state-anxiety scores and higher game scores across three trials.
That is interesting evidence. It is not proof that Meditation Battle League is a clinical treatment. The study had no control group, used a limited sample, and tested the prototype rather than the later league.
“Participants who received training using Meditation Deathmatch showed significant post-training decreases in state anxiety and consistent and significant increases in game score across trials.”Feasibility study, 2018
03 / The battle
Two people wear consumer EEG headbands and sit head-to-head. Their live readings appear side by side. We are not looking for an absolute meditation score. The display only tells us who is ahead in that round.
When a player pulls ahead, a soundboard sends isolated sounds to a speaker beside them to try to knock them down. Each arena has its own soundscape:
Winning means beating the person across from you. The more useful win is staying calm under pressure and bringing some of that calm back into the real world.
04 / How it started
Meditation Battle League grew out of a chance meeting between Texas and Bay Area meditators. Meditation Deathmatch had been built in Austin by neuroscience researchers and artists and taken to Burning Man.
At an afterparty during the first Body Hacking Conference in Austin, San Francisco biohacker Eric Matzner tried the format and wanted to explore what meditation looked like outside a calm room.
Months later, Shanta Stevens, one of the Meditation Deathmatch creators, came to San Francisco. Eric set up the first West Coast battle. It was more reserved than the original Deathmatch, but it became the precursor to Meditation Battle League.
“Pairs of contestants would meditate while the audience tried to distract them with heckling.”The Atlantic, “The Brain Bro,” 2016
Event record / 2018-2019
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