Ahem.
Cough, cough.
Excuse me.
Perhaps I'm missing something. I just saw this new device profiled on the evening news and I totally lost it. The EmWave is a device marketed as a "personal stress reliever" that when held in your hand and it tells you based on a series of LED displays and audio feedback what your stress level is any given moment and how to lower it for overall improvement in vitality and mental clarity. It can be yours for only $179! It claims to improve overall health, reduce fatigue and sleeping problems,and improve emotional health.
When I first saw this device profiled my jaw dropped. Do we really need a device to tell us when we are tense? To tell us that our jaw is clenched? Our neck muscles too tight? Our breathing too shallow?
I suppose if you are nose deep in a blackberry while simultaneously trying to eating dinner and spend quality time with your family, you are too busy to notice your own breathing, therefore you will need to grab onto another device to make sure you aren't too stressed by the multitasking.
Are we as a society too preoccupied to notice when we are feeling too tense and perhaps sense the need to take a walk around the block? I love my technology as much as the next person, really. I use my laptop while watching television that was digitally recorded the night before just so that I can fast forward through the commercials. I have a cell phone and a digital camera and I will admit, the iPhone and iTouch are very cool, but, overpriced devices that I can absolutely live without.
If our constant connection to phones, computers and blackberries are contributors to our inability to relax and separate and de-stress, is another device really our only hope? Are we only able to trust information that comes to us through a technological device? Has society forgotten how to recognize something as simple as a biofeedback response like a clenched jaw or tension headache? Are we so helpless that we can't take a signal from our bodies to get some damn fresh air, take a breath, slow down, and chill the fuck out?
A device that serves solely to tell you when you are stressed completely misses the boat that is self awareness which is really the core to overall stress reduction.
Please, please, please .... what will be next? A device reminding you to talk with your spouse, or hug your children?
Life is so short, I think it is sad that we have outsourced yet one more way of taking responsibility for ourselves and our lives.
It's interesting that when I was at a dental expo and was wearing a device that measures the force of jaw clenching and grinding, I found that I was stressed out throughout the day even when I had no idea I was stressed! I really believe that we can be quite tense without even realizing it, throughout the day if we keep track of some of the symptoms of stress, such as muscle tension, heartrate, and blood pressure.
Posted by: Tooth-Grinding | December 02, 2008 at 02:19 PM