The first ten minutes of a session

What happens the moment I walk in?

You are greeted by the person who will run your session. There is no separate reception desk to pass through and no clipboard handed over by someone you will not see again. At a single studio that continuity is the point.

You will be shown where to put a coat and a bag, offered water, and pointed at the room you will be sitting in. If you arrive early you can sit in the waiting area, which is deliberately dull. No music, no screens, nothing asking for your attention.

The room itself is small. A reclining chair, a side table, a lamp with a warm bulb, and a case holding the equipment. The overhead light can go off if you prefer the lamp alone. Say so.

What questions will I be asked before we start?

A short set of practical ones. How you slept. Whether you have eaten. Whether you are carrying a headache today. Whether anything about your week is worth mentioning before you sit still for a while.

These are not screening questions and they are not a health assessment. The practitioner is not qualified to conduct one and will not pretend otherwise. They are context questions, in the same way a swimming instructor asks whether you are cold before you get in.

You can answer briefly. You can also decline to answer. Nothing in the session changes if you would rather not discuss your week, and nobody will press.

• How the last few nights of sleep have gone.
• Whether you have had caffeine in the last hour.
• Whether you are comfortable in the chair, and whether the light level is right.
• Whether you have any questions left over from the consultation.

How is the equipment explained?

Out loud, in order, before anything touches you. The practitioner opens the case, shows you the device, shows you the sensors, and shows you the small conductive paste used to improve contact. You can hold a sensor if you want to.

The explanation covers what the device does and what it does not do. It carries a very small electrical signal, measured in millionths of an amp. It is not a scanner, it is not an imaging device, and it does not read thoughts. It produces no picture of you.

If you want the longer version of that explanation, the equipment page and the how it works page cover the same ground in more depth than a ten minute conversation allows. Some people prefer to read it beforehand and skip the talk. That is fine.

Where do the sensors go?

On the scalp and sometimes behind the ears, at positions taken from a written placement convention rather than chosen on instinct. The practitioner will part your hair, apply a small amount of paste, and clip or hold the sensor in place.

You will feel fingertips and something cool. That is the paste. The sensors themselves are light, and once they are on most people forget where they are until they come off.

Placement is written into your session record before the session runs, not reconstructed afterwards from memory. That record is what makes a series of sessions comparable to each other rather than a sequence of improvisations.

Long hair is not a problem. Product in your hair sometimes is, because it interferes with contact. If you use a heavy leave-in product, mention it and the practitioner will work around it.

Does anything hurt?

No part of the first ten minutes involves discomfort beyond the ordinary sensation of someone touching your scalp. There are no needles, nothing is broken, and nothing is inserted.

The paste is water soluble and comes out with a normal wash. It leaves hair slightly damp at the placement points. If you have somewhere to be afterwards, plan for that rather than for a mess.

People who dislike having their head touched should say so at the consultation. There are ways to slow that part down, including placing one sensor, pausing, and continuing only when you are ready.

When does the session actually begin?

When you confirm you are ready and not before. The practitioner will ask directly, wait for an answer, and then start. If you want another minute, you get another minute.

From there the active portion is short and undemanding. You sit. You are not asked to concentrate, breathe in a pattern, watch anything, or perform. That is the part people find strangest, because it asks nothing of you.

You can stop at any point by saying stop. The sensors come off in under a minute. Nobody will ask you to justify the decision, and it does not affect whether you can come back.

What should I do differently to prepare?

Very little. Eat something beforehand so you are not sitting still and hungry. Skip the extra coffee if you can, mostly because it makes sitting quietly less pleasant.

Give yourself somewhere unhurried to go afterwards. The most common report is that the rest of the day feels slower, and having a train to catch in eleven minutes works against that.

Bring your questions written down if you have them. Ten minutes goes quickly and people routinely forget the one thing they meant to ask.

What if the first ten minutes are the part I am most worried about?

Then book a consultation instead of a session and use it to see the room. You can sit in the chair, hold the equipment, ask what you like, and leave without anything being placed on you.

That option exists because the unfamiliarity, not the session, is what most people are actually nervous about. Removing the unfamiliarity first is cheaper and calmer than pushing through it.