Stress screws up everything. Literally everything. Studies have shown that stress releases chemicals in your body that negatively affect your diet, metabolism, energy levels, complexion, emotional stability, ability to sleep, and so on. But, what if there were a device, one that did not involve any pricking of the fingers, hooking up of tubes, or even visiting a doctor all that much to help you regulate and get control of your stress levels?
Such a device now exists, and was on display today at the Mobile Health Expo in New York in HeartMath’s booth. HeartMath, a company that started out as a research firm, has developed the emWave technology. The technology itself has developed with the business, evolving from software to a handheld device, which is the most recent product on the market. In an interview with Catherine Calarco, senior VP of sales and marketing for HeartMath, this reporter got a hands-on view of how exactly the emWave2 (the latest released version) helps regular Joes and Josephines get a handle on every-day stress.
The deceptively small device is based on over 18 years of research, according to Calarco. With worldwide adoption of the product, HeartMath has already introduced the revolutionary technology to 15,000 health professionals across the globe. Positioned as an educational device, the emWave2 simply evaluates the user’s heart rate, and monitors its progress over a period of minutes while the user actively tries to think of something peaceful, tries to relax, or calm down from a potentially stressful moment.
With indicator lights blinking from red to blue to green, the device sits in the user’s palm and records the patterns of the user’s heart rate which can then later be downloaded onto a computer and sent to the user’s physician for analysis. Ideally designed to assist the user with his or her own ability to de-stress in a situation, the device becomes a mechanism for the eventual ownership of the user’s stress levels. By using the emWave2 to monitor one’s own heart rate, one can learn to become aware of what situations make one more stressed, and how to mentally calm down during them.
This kind of “digital meditation” is ideal for professionals and consumers in the homeopathic industry, and for users in functional medicine as it is totally noninvasive and ultimately designed to enable the user to monitor stress without it.
Calarco noted that caregivers can take advantage of the emWave2 technology in particular, as it can be used at any time of day for a brief period of minutes. Should a nurse or physician be particularly anxious before interacting with a patient, that patient can be negatively affected by the stress levels of the caregiver. The emWave2 allows the caregiver to bring down heart rate and gain control over his or her stress level before interacting with patients or beginning a procedure.
Used to ultimately give users control over their own stress levels, the emWave2 has the potential to significantly impact the mobile health industry as a portable device available for healthcare professionals and consumers to regulate their own reactions to everyday situations.
Juliana Kenny graduated from the University of Connecticut with a double degree in English and French. After managing a small company for two years, she joined TMC as a Web Editor for HealthTechZone. Juliana currently focuses on the call center and CRM industries, but she also writes about cloud telephony and network gear including softswitches.
Edited by Juliana Kenny
