When people are anxious, stressed or in any other high-intensity emotional state, they hear “Take a deep breath” for a reason. There is also science behind the saying, “Put your heart into it.” Stress levels, sleeplessness, life longevity and overall performance are all affected by your emotional and mental state. A company called HeartMath works to combine both your breathing and your heartbeat, to optimize people’s health, mood, emotional state and decision making.
I spoke with Catherine Calarco, chief marketing officer and senior vice president at HeartMath, at CES this week to learn why she believes the company has a game-changing technology and to see it in action firsthand.
It starts with the Inner Balance Trainer, a self-monitoring and training system for users to control their breathing. The system is available on iPhone, iPad and iTouch, and pairs with an Inner Balance Trainer sensor, which costs between $99 and $129 and simply clips onto a user’s ear to track health data.
The system tracks breathing patterns, brain waves, heart rate variability (HRV) and more to help users become more focused, calm and ready to face whatever comes their way. Calarco suggests using the sensor and system one to two times a day for five to 15 minutes for optimal results. She says the key to the system is offering technology that serves a purpose – rather than just tracking your data, it gives you insights in real-time on what to change and training solutions to meet different levels.
The system is also interoperable with the HeartCloud online platform, which syncs with the app and user profiles to display data, training history, awards and achievements, and more.
HeartMath makes the point that technology has enabled us to gain more intelligence, insight and data into human behavior than ever before, but stress levels, anxiety and pressure are high and common across populations. The growth of wearable technology is expected to disrupt the health and fitness category, but this company takes traditional wearable tech for those purposes to a new level, encouraging users to focus not only on tracking their activity levels, but also on controlling their bodies’ behaviors and using that to improve moods, health, life expectancy and more.
Edited by
Rory J. Thompson
