Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. (March 26, 2025): Put simply, the brain is a muscle. If inactive or not exercised properly, just like the body, the mind will fail you when under intense pressure. In this photo by Airman 1st Class Hunter Hites, Staff Sergeant Kaylin Cornell, a 673rd Force Support Squadron fitness assessment cell manager, sits in a facility designed to bolster mental resilience and cognitive performance.
The military services have recognized that mental conditioning is as equally important to battlefield success as physical prowess. Additionally, military members and their families experience levels of stress far exceeding their civilian counterparts.
That is where MindGym, a virtual mental fitness trainer, comes in. Manufactured by Lumena, MindGym is a 7X7 foot reflective cube-shaped chamber that measures stress, improves focus, and promotes mental resilience. The system fuses meditation techniques with mindfulness training to measure one’s ability to manage stress and suggests ways to improve those skills.
Sessions last approximately 10-20 minutes and are divided into segments of peace, mental training, and performance enhancement. The trainer uses a combination of isolation, light, and sound to create an immersive cognitive training environment. The system monitors the participant’s mental performance using an Electroencephalogram (EEG) biosensor to measure mental fitness. These sensors generate assessments that are provided to the user and multiple sessions can be stored for future reference.
During the experience, the EEG headband continuously measures the electrical activity of the brain via electrodes attached to the scalp. Software assists the user in transitioning their mental state using light and sound to promote relaxation, inner exploration, and contemplative practices. Sessions are divided into segments, addressing relaxation, mental training, and performance enhancement.
During each session, MindGym tracks a user’s vital signs like heart rate, respiratory rate, and how the body responded to each stimulus. When a user returns for the next session, MindGym will remember previous experiences and will tailor each new session to individual goals and preferences.