We get it, you’re stressed, and who can blame you? You’re not alone: The Washington Post reports that many people are turning to so-called “anxiety tech” to take the edge off.
While Android and iPhones have built-in biofeedback capabilities to monitor your breathing and heart rates — and to help you decompress — people have been flocking to other devices to try to relax.
One of these, the paper notes, is The Orb, a $229 ball, about the size of a grapefruit. The gadget from an Israeli company called Reflect Innovation measures your heart rate and even your finger sweat, to help you chill.
Another is a rock. Well, it looks like a rock, but the Zen, retailing for $79 is actually a speaker that plays meditation content from its creator, French company Morphée.
Plenty of other apps out there make similar promises to get you to calm down, too.
Even though meditation and biofeedback in general have been linked to having positive health effects, as the Post points out, they don’t provide much in the peer-reviewed science department in the way of proof.
Shiri Perciger, chief marketing officer at Reflect, which makes The Orb, seems to acknowledge that, commenting to the paper, “It’s not scientific or statistically significant or anything, but the strongest feedback I feel we get is that anyone who hears about this product says, ‘Oh, I need one.'”