Steve Aoki: Mindfulness From the Top of the World

A drive to get things done; an affection for challenge; a desire to empower others.

An incredible talent for music; a charismatic personality; a savvy businessman.

These traits are defining features for one of the most successful musicians in the EDM genre today: Steve Aoki. Aoki is a musician, producer, and author. He is the founder of Dim Mak Records and the Aoki Foundation, a charitable organization focused on funding research for better brain health. He is also one of the most prolific touring artists in the world, regularly performing hundreds of live shows per year; he is labelled by the BBC as “the man who works 361 days a year.” Few people are so hard-working as Steve Aoki, but the pride he takes in his work seems to make it well-worth the incredible effort.

eSmartr is thrilled to be announcing our partnership with Steve Aoki. Between his determination, hectic lifestyle, and background with neuroscience, we’ve been able to learn a lot together about the many potential applications and benefits for the eSmartr sleeve. Aoki tells us that “mental health is the number one most important thing in [his] life,” and describes the sleeve as a tool that can help him to maintain good mindfulness practices. He’s worn it to meditate, to exercise — and even while performing live. “When I wear the sleeve during a performance,” he says, “it’s like I have an extra liftoff.”

“No matter how busy you are in a day you can always find time to work out, and you have to use your environment around you to make it happen,” Aoki says, speaking to the importance of finding and making time to keep healthy. Finding moments for calm is incredibly important for avoiding burnout — and with everything Aoki balances in his life, burnout is a dangerous and ever-present possibility. Despite this, he has performed at hundreds of concerts every year for the past decade, while bringing 100% of himself to every show, no matter what.

Mindfulness on the Road

Maintaining this lifestyle isn’t easy. Aoki sleeps on planes, meditates, and he tries to bring elements of his home life on the road with him, even if it’s something as basic as fruits and vegetables for snacking on. Finding moments of quiet in the midst of a hectic schedule can be a true challenge, but Aoki meets it admirably — he has to.

When Aoki isn’t working on a new album, remix, or live show, he is an active supporter of organizations dedicated to neuroscience research through The Aoki Foundation. His goal is to discover cures for degenerative brain diseases, and to help increase human understanding of what the brain is capable of.

Steve Aoki and the eSmartr Sleeve

Aoki says that what he does is “more than a full time job … it’s a way of life.” Partnering with someone so wholly dedicated to being on the road, to finding solutions for brain health problems, and to his “day job” as a DJ and producer is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — because Steve Aoki is the kind of person you meet only once in a lifetime. His experiences and insights surrounding the Sleeve show that even when you’re on top of the world, you can always benefit from mindfulness made easy.