Are you tired? Stressed out? Unable to sleep at night?
Welcome to the modern world, where some 15.3% of US women and 10.1% of men claim to “often feel very tired or exhausted”, while 6% of people in the US have insomnia, according to the National Institutes of Health.
In 2015 our body clocks and natural energy are a mess: we struggle with tiredness during the day, yet find ourselves unable to sleep at night. To combat this we have a wealth of remedies, from coffee in the morning to lettuce at night. But don’t they all seem, well, rather last century? Can’t technology help us out?
But of course: as I recently wrote on this blog there are a wealth of apps out there to help us to get to sleep. There are also apps to help to wake you up with a boost of mental energy.
Compared to the latest development in wearable tech, however, these apps seem like child’s play.
The device in question is called Thync, it launched publicly this month after becoming one of the talking points of the 2015 CES, and it aims to alter your mood by zapping your brain with electricity, stimulating the nerves to provide “calm or energy on demand”.
In keeping with its Californian roots – and probably to make the process sound a little less scary – Thync calls this electricity “Vibes”. “Vibes,” it explains, “are proprietary, neurosignaling waveforms created over years of research, development and testing by Thync neuroscientists and engineers.”
In fact, Thync provides two kinds of Vibes, depending on your needs, the “Calm Vibe” and the “Energy Vibe”. The former allegedly makes users “physically relaxed, more centred, more aware of breathing and heart rate, detached from stressful thoughts and less likely to react emotionally”. We are even promised “mild euphoria in some cases”.
The latter provides “mental alertness”, a “burst of physical energy” and “motivation to be active” with users feeling “focused”, “excited” and the “need to accomplish something”. You might even get a warm feeling in your chest, if you’re particularly lucky.
These Vibes are delivered by a Bluetooth-connected headpiece (the Thync Module), Thync Strips which are attached to the neck or behind the ear to stimulate nerves, and the Thync app. The whole kit costs $299 and it is currently only availably in the US.
Sounds like a painful experience? Not a bit of it, apparently: Thync claims that Vibes are “similar to the relaxing sensation of a massage or the invigoration of splashing cold water on your face – only more focused”.
This all sounds pretty lovely. But does it actually work? Several reviews claim so: the San Jose Mercury News, for example, reported that “Breath slowed, anxiety disappeared, facial tension relaxed and worries gave way to a still mind.”
Would you use this technology, though? Would your friends? And how about your ageing mum, who is only just getting to grips with her iPad?
That is another matter entirely.
Luis Rincon, co-founder and CEO of wearables.com thinks the appetite is there. “Are people looking for some sort of stimulant to alter their mental state? Unequivocally, yes,” he told Dispatch.com. “So there absolutely is a consumer appetite for this, and that’s been the case for millenniums. What’s new is we are now entering a phase where technology can provide that stimulant.”
According to Dispatch, we have all become so used to wearable technology such as fitness trackers that the step up to something like Thync – a wearable 2.0 – is relatively easy. Thync co-founder and CEO Isy Goldwasser even compares his product to a tracker. “All wearables today are trackers,” he told Dispatch. “Our wearable is working in synergy with the body.”
Meanwhile, on the Huffington Post Alvaro Fernandez, author of The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness: How to Optimize Brain Health, compares transcranial stimulation of this kind to “the new coffee”, making it sound even mundane.
Thync uses the same kind of language on its website. “A Thync Energy Vibe does have a similar effect to caffeine,” Thync says. “We’re looking forward to hearing how your caffeine intake is affected once you try Thync.”
it is, of course, in Thync’s interests to make this new technology sound as carefree as possible and there is a wealth of literature on its website to reassure potential customers about its use. The company talks about how Thync can be used to reduce the stress students feel around exams and even help users find love (by calming them down before dates, since you asked). So far, so mundane.
But there is no disguising what a fundamentally disruptive product Thync could be, taking wearable technology into your actual brain chemistry. It doesn’t feel like wearable 2.0, so much, as wearable 5.0 or more. But this technology is in the market now with Thync.
What’s more, it looks set to be the thin end of the wedge. Fernandez claims that the tech sector is witnessing “an unprecedented explosion in brain-related technology, both in the amount of dollars invested as well as the variety of novel applications developed”, with patent filings doubling from 800 in 2010 to 1,600 last year.
Zack Lynch, executive director and founder of the Neurotechnology Industry Organisation, calls neurotechnology ”a disruptive force that will impact major parts of every industry, creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs, companies, and investors on the cutting edge to take leadership roles in upgrading entertainment, health, education, wellness and more.”
But to do so, it will need to overcome several hurdles. The first is regulatory: Thync, the company says, “is considered a lifestyle product and has been exempted by the FDA from its medical device regulations and approvals” based on its use and output characteristics.
That, of course, significantly smoothes Thync’s path to market. But there is no guarantee that the FDA – or regulators in other markets – will follow suit with similar wearable products in the future.
But the most difficult hurdle will be to persuade the general public that neurotechnology products are safe – and even stimulating – for the brain.
Vibes and digital coffee are one thing. But the sharp reality of stimulating nerves with electrical pulses still seems a little bit too close to electroshock therapy (and its negative public image) for comfort.
“It’s probably no more crazy than taking a bunch of supplements that you don’t really know anything about,” Steve Holmes, Intel’s vice president of new devices, told Dispath on the subject of Thync. “But just to do it recreationally, I would be cautious.”
@thync