Building on recent medical studies and ancient Yoga traditions, Prana today announced the world’s first wearable which monitors two interconnected factors affecting health: Breath and Posture. Prana is the only wearable which can detect diaphragmatic breathing, breath patterns, and simultaneously evaluate posture, all from one location on the waistband. Prana works both as a passive tracker and active training system, allowing people to learn how they breathe and sit, and then to train breath and posture for stress reduction and a variety of other medically supported health benefits.
“It’s been known for thousands of years that good posture facilitates good breathing, so it made sense to us to track both” said Dr. Paul Abramson, M.D., chief science officer of Prana. “We breathe differently in slumped versus upright postures, with significant improvements in forced expiratory volume while upright. The movement of the diaphragm is less restricted with good posture. Good breath and posture can provide many benefits, including reduced stress and less back pain.”
“It felt misleading to us to just track an isolated breathing signal” said Andre Persidsky, CEO and Co-Founder of Prana. “We wanted to offer a truer more holistic picture of breathing quality, which necessitated factoring in posture, but also providing the capability to distinguish between chest and belly breathing, as most traditions of good breathing (and recent science) emphasize the value of breathing from the abdomen. Our team has worked over two years in developing a unique set of algorithms, with key breakthroughs for disentangling breath from posture signals, as well as chest from belly breathing, all within one small wearable worn near the waist.”
“We’ve taken all this science behind good breathing and sitting and put a simple game layer on top of it, making it fun and accessible to anyone”, said Alex Ahlund, VP of Interactive & Design and Co-Founder of Prana. “Our software offers an extensive library of breathing exercises/techniques from traditions from all around the world, including Yoga Pranayama, Tai Chi, and Buteyko, intuitively organized by time of day or intended effect, such as Wake Up or De-Stress. By introducing a gaming element, we encourage longer term engagement compared to most passive trackers.”
“There is now much research backing the notion that specific breathing patterns can have specific physiological impacts, such as promoting calmness through the parasympathetic response, increasing alertness, improving heart rate variability, lowering blood pressure, interrupting acute anxiety episodes, and even helping with chronic pain” said Dr. Paul Abramson, M.D., chief science officer of Prana. “For example, as a previous ER physician, I would often instruct the many patients presenting with panic attacks to try the 4-7-8 breath pattern, which was very effective in calming. Now we have a device which can easily train this pattern and many others, with benefits attainable in as little as 3 minutes of use.”
Prana is a sleek and stylish tracker worn near the waist for monitoring breath and posture. It’s fastened with a clip or magnetic clasp and communicates with most iOS and Android smart phones via Bluetooth. A companion app provides both passive tracking and active training modes—the former for sending push alerts when detecting signs of stressed breathing or bad posture, and the latter for actively training breath through a gamified experience. Prana also tracks steps and activity, covering both our seated and standing times. Both iOS and Android operating systems are supported and a rechargeable battery provides up to 7 days of use.
About Prana
Prana is the ultimate wearable for stress reduction, designed to give us rapid access to our body’s relaxation response. By monitoring breath patterns, diaphragmatic breathing, and posture, Prana offers a deep and holistic view into the quality of breathing, and provides the tools to change it for better health. Prana is lightweight and easy to wear near the waist, and connects to most smart phones providing a gamified engaging app experience. With a 204 page published patent covering numerous breakthroughs, Prana offers many new features unavailable in today’s activity trackers. Prana is based in San Francisco. For more information, visit www.prana.co
Source: Prana