{ games } Balanced
Current: follow the light, nothing else.
Balanced · 60 to 120 seconds · Regulate+
Some days the noise in your head isn't loud, it's just everywhere. Current gives your attention one slow thing to follow, and keeps it just hard enough that you stay with it.
In short
Rest a fingertip on a slow light and follow it as it wanders. Stay with it and it glows; drift and it frays. The pace eases in, lifts a little in the middle, and slows to stillness at the end.
Follow it here.
45 sec · finger or mouseA shorter version of the game. In the app it reads how well you're tracking and adjusts as you go.
On your own · a minute or two
How to do it without the app.
- Pick something that moves slowly: a candle flame, a leaf in a breeze, or your own fingertip drawn slowly across the table.
- Follow it with your eyes, smoothly, without jumping ahead.
- When your mind wanders off, bring your eyes back to it. That is the whole practice.
- Stop after a minute or two, before it starts to feel like work.
In the app, it meets you where you are.
Current watches how closely you're following and changes the challenge as you go. Stay with it easily and it asks a little more. Lose it and it backs off quickly.
- A light tick when you find the light again
- A light tick every 20 seconds you stay with it
- One firmer tap at the end
- No sound, nothing to count: 60, 90 or 120 seconds
Part of Regulate+
Why it works
Following one moving thing gives your attention a job that is easy to start and hard to drift from. You don't have to empty your head or breathe a certain way. You just keep up with the light.
It works best when it's neither too easy nor too hard. That balance between challenge and skill is what psychologists call flow, and Current adjusts as you go to try to stay there. It's made for ordinary days.
What the research says
The idea is sound. The game itself is untested.
Current draws on flow research, which links calm, absorbed attention to tasks pitched close to your current skill. Nobody has run a trial of fingertip tracking as a way to settle, including us.
- Evidence
- Early: theory, no trial of this kind of game
- Built on
- Flow research: balancing challenge and skill
- What it doesn't show
- That it lowers anxiety or heart rate. We don't claim it does.
When to use it
On a day that's fine, when you want two minutes of quiet attention. After a long stretch of screens, when your focus feels scattered rather than stressed.
Questions people ask
Is Current a breathing exercise?
No. There's nothing to count. You follow the light and leave your breathing alone.
What happens if I lose the light?
It frays and waits. Put your finger back on it and it glows again. Nothing is lost.
How long is it?
60, 90 or 120 seconds. Standard is 90.
Sources
Evidence: early
More for when you're balanced
Current is part of Regulate+. 7 days free on the annual plan.
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