Breathing Necklaces: The New Age Cure-You Need to Try Now
Against the backdrop of a plethora of new, awe-inspiring gadgets, wearable technology differentiates itself by elegantly introducing health management in the fabric of our daily lives. The Breathing Necklace as a wearable device is a pioneering technology in two aspects; one is its technology, and the other one is its application to managing stress and overall well-being. By regulating the breathing cycle of the wearer, the necklace opens up new possibilities for the management of stress and anxiety, as well as being a portable device that could be used by people who attempt to give up smoking.
Wearables such as the Breathing Necklace signal an important milestone in a series of techniques designed to alleviate stress. Through the regulation of breathing – one of the earliest reflexes and key elements of stress reduction – the device literally employs our ‘fight-or-flight’ physiological response to reduce mental strains. Real-time feedback motivates the organism to resort to deep breathing cycles linked with the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. The consequences are stress reduction, calmness, and well-being.
The increasing consumer adoption of wearable technology for health and wellness is a sign of the times, reflecting how these devices expand the options available to consumers who want or need to manage their own personal health. In the most highly evolved future, the Breathing Necklace would be superfluous, because we would all have impeccable breathing habits. But that aside, these devices serve to highlight not only the possibilities of technology to improve health but also how the public is shifting toward integrative and preventative health care.
The science behind how breath regulation affects relaxation is well-grounded in biology: focusing on steady, deep, slow breaths increases the amount of oxygen carried to the brain, which is itself highly valuable in achieving a mindful, distance-taking state of consciousness. The necklace leads the wearer through regulated breathing cycles The Breathing Necklace leverages this natural mechanism; as a portable and discreet tool, it can be used anywhere, anytime, allowing the wearer to calm down.
The main barrier to quitting smoking is psychological, not physical: the harmful practice is difficult to break free from. In a 2011 survey of 93,000 people, the social networking site Smokefree.gov found that leaving behind cigarettes and nicotine, a very real – yet ultimately optional – chemical addiction, was just as hard as issues like homelessness, grumpy family members, and children. Breathing is at the core of life, and controlling the breath is, according to Lawniczak and Ivry, a ‘life’s detour’. Attending to controlled breathing as a coping mechanism, rather than hand-to-mouth physical immediacy, allows smokers to surmount cravings by distracting them, lessening their psychological addiction, and stepping off the slow march toward death.
The Breathing Necklace taps into trends towards non-pharmacological means of anxiety regulation that are now gathering momentum, and presents a courageous and innovative way to reincorporate therapeutic practices into everyday activities, granting individuals a degree of initiative in the management of their anxiety.
A piece of wearable technology, the Breathing Necklace combines the best of science, wellness, and design to create a practice of breath regulation that can reduce stress, ease anxiety a,d wean people away from smoking. Given the scope of health and wellness interventions possible with wearables, their future is bright when it comes to providing us with tools for improved health.
