Reward — Brain Cooler

Ooohm to tune into the light

the mechanism

A hit with no bill

The shiver you get from music runs on the same dopamine reward circuit that food, sex and drugs of abuse recruit.¹ A pleasure the body already knows how to make, with nothing to pay back.

Here you make the peak yourself. The drone underneath holds one steady chord; hum toward it, and when your voice lands on its note you lock into tune with it, the light flares, and everything charges faster until it breaks into the chill. And a long sung note is a long exhale, which quietly pulls you toward calm on the way.²

Blood & Zatorre, Intensely pleasurable responses to music..., PNAS, 2001.
Zaccaro et al., How breath-control can change your life, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2018.

Your voice is read on-device as loudness.