Repetitive and overpromising; don't you ever dare take it away from me.

I have been using Brain.fm for 53 consecutive weeks, as it likes to remind me every time I open it. I have wanted to write this review since the first week, but I first wanted to be sure I arrived at something truly sustainable. I now feel I have enough experience.

Context

Brain.fm has been on my radar for several years, but its previews on YouTube did not interest me too much, and the price turned me away if I ever returned.

However, I frequently struggle with motivation. Sitting down to a daunting task and getting started feels like climbing a mountain if I am under a significant mental load.

Another thing is that I am susceptible to noise. Any talking around me completely throws me off balance and cripples my performance.

What I’ve tried

One thing that I found really helped was music. It needs a particular type – no vocals, not too lively but also not white noise, slightly rhythmic, and very long. The right music can change the mountain climb into a stroll, sometimes even pleasurable.

Over time, I developed a small collection of music. Here are some of my favourites:

  • Lo-fi whatever, I’ve heard it all
  • LotR, Narnia, and Harry Potter study playlists
  • Coding Mode on Spotify
  • This playlist by randy1
  • Minecraft, WoW, Civilization VI soundtracks
  • ADHD relief/study music
  • Random jazz/piano/instrumental

Also, f*ck Ambient Worlds. They saturated the market, but all of their playlists have five songs on repeat.

However, this well of media eventually ran dry, and after several months, I heard everything I had to hear and did not find much more. That’s when I stumbled on Brain.fm and decided to give it a go.

The variability issue

At first, I was over the moon. The music seemed endless, had configurable intensity, different playlists for different tasks, and was play-and-forget – just… perfect.

But after a few weeks, you start recognising tracks. Then you start recognising more. Then you know them by heart.

One year later, do I mind? Yes and no. There is definitely repetitiveness involved. But few tracks are recognisable enough to get appropriately annoying. Some things that also help:

  • Switching around Activities. This takes some getting used to, as at first, everything sounds like “Deep Work”, but that gets old fast. Getting more intentional with what you are doing and your pick helps immensely
  • Changing around Neural Effect levels. I mostly settled on “Low”, but changing it around, especially during different times of day and the number of stimuli in the environment – I like increasing it when it’s dark outside – unlocks some completely new tracks
  • Embracing all genres. I do not like piano tracks too much. I got used to them and now enjoy the variety.
  • Enjoying updates. One thing I have to give to the team behind Brain.fm is that they are constantly adding new tracks. They tend to come in batches every so often, which I did not realise at first when I first started to get fed up. But not too long after that, they dropped a tonne of new tracks, and that kept me stimulated for a sizeable amount of time, and it’s been like that ever since.
  • Working less. The problem is most pronounced when I am overworked. There have been times when I came home from work and started grading homework, and that’s when the repetitiveness became unbearable. However, the bigger problem is a lifestyle like that is entirely unsustainable. I would say that for an 8-hour workday, it is good enough, anything above that starts becoming a problem.
  • Work hygiene. Another thing I noticed is that once, thanks to Brain.fm, I developed strong work morale, I relied on it much less. Currently, I only fire it up at work if I am under high mental strain or there is noise about, but more often than not, I work in quiet and enjoy it. Over time, Brain.fm became less life support and more a lifesaver. I use it more for a boost to help me overcome tasks that I hate or when I need more creativity.

So, overall, do I wish the variability was higher? Yes, but it’s far from a dealbreaker.

Regarding “neural effects”

Speaking of creativity, a lot of marketing on Brain.fm focuses on improving focus and productivity by hacking the brain with music.

This is my personal experience with my own rather weird brain, and it will probably be different for you. But, overall, after a year of use, I cannot report any mental gains. I tend to hyper-focus quickly and get into a flow state. Brain.fm did not really change the quality of that. What it does help me with is broadening the environments I can operate in and making focus on-demand, making me less of a slave of my current mental state.

However, the one thing it does help is creativity. I love listening on Creativity mode if I am doing graphic design, photo editing, writing, or struggling with a hard coding problem. I am listening to it now on a train and vibing hard, having turned it on after struggling to find sentences in the kerfuffle and overall not enjoying the experience at all. That has been my consistent experience with Brain.fm and creative tasks. Also, the creative tracks are pure bangers.

Note that this experience is not restricted to Brain.fm for me. Any kind of music helped. Brain.fm is just much more consistent.

Not for everyone

Another thing that I noticed is that, despite my very enthusiastic and ambassador-prone personality, I am still the only one of my friends who uses it after a year. Some have tried it and did not find it helped them. Some, when they listen to it, say, “Wow, that is the most generic-sounding music I have ever heard”. But I have not yet found anyone whom it helped quite like me.

What I miss

From the more technical side, the mobile app is very sluggish, being almost unusable on my older phone. It also seems to get features quicker than the web version, i.e., for a long time, it had a Light Work mode that was missing from the web version, which I sorely missed. Even now, it has a Meditation mode that’s not available on the website. If you plan to use the web version primarily, this is a consideration.

Another thing I miss is an offline mode. It buffers quite far ahead, but if you open it on a train with no phone signal, you are pretty much screwed until you manage to load at least something.

But the biggest gripe I have that troubles me deeply is that this tool that greatly increases my quality of life, ability to focus, and makes me a more capable person overall is… subscription-based. The fact that this company could go under tomorrow and leave me with nothing is something I have to solve.

I have no interest in aiding piracy and will gladly pay money for this service for as long as it is available, but if I find a way to backup the whole site I will do so in a heartbeat. If anyone has tried to do this successfully, please email me.

I won’t share the code or the results, but one day, Brain.fm, as all online services, will disappear. After that, who knows, you might find an archive here.

Should you get this

For me, the bottom line is that if you already listen to a lot of study/work playlists, buying Brain.fm will streamline your experience and readily pay for itself.

If you are short on money, did you know they offer a 20% student discount? They do not advertise it much, but it helped me pull the trigger when I had little money to spare.

If you are looking for a way to hack your way to better productivity, your mileage may vary. I say, try it for 30 days (here’s a link for an extended 30-day free trial) and see.

  1. Who inevitably persuaded me to switch to Brain.fm, fun fact ↩