emWave Personal Stress Reliever

I would like to comment on the inaccurate and misleading statement in your review of the new emWave Personal Stress Reliever. The research conducted at HeartMath's Research Center is hardly "pseudoscience" as you state. Over the past fifteen plus years, a substantial body of our research has been published in respected peer-reviewed journals such as American Journal of Cardiology, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Stress Medicine and Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science to mention only a few. HeartMath has generated a significant body of research related to heart rate variability, heart rhythm coherence, heart-brain interactions and the physiology of stress and emotions. Our research helps explain how stressful emotions affect health and performance and how individuals can learn to neutralize stress as it arises. The Freeze-Framer and emWave technologies are only two components of the HeartMath System, which is currently used in many parts of the world by major corporations, cardiologists, psychologists, educators, professional and Olympic athletes to counter stress and enhance performance.

emWave Personal Stress Reliever is based on the same research and science of heart coherence and heart rate variability as HeartMath?s award-winning Freeze-Framer software/hardware program.

The initial "relief" you felt is well-founded and we are happy to be able to provide a product that is portable, highly reliable in displaying heart coherence, and effective in helping people relieve stress. We appreciate that you chose to include emWave Personal Stress Reliever on your web site.

I hope your readers will take the time to become familiar with the true depth of the scientific research behind HeartMath's programs and products.

Gabriella Boehmer
HeartMath, Director of Public Relations

Gosh Gabriella - perhaps you'd care to share some of the research citations with us. We can read, you know, and some of us even understand big words.

Hello there

let me first start by saying that I'm in no way associated with heartmath, I simply bought this device one month ago. until this point , this device has helped me a lot. so what do I know ? This could be placebo! but after reading your article I was curious if you're right; is this pseudoscience or scientific? it made me quite skeptic to read your article .

But then Today I found this list of articles relating to the emWave and freeze framer technology on the quantum Inc. homepage, perhaps this will shed some light on the issue of pseudoscience . they write on the home page that they are willing to send some of the articles on request.

Well I've ordered the book called Science of the Heart and I'll check out also.

So here's the list:

1. McCraty, R., Barrios-Choplin, B., Rozman, D., Atkinson, M. and Watkins, A. The impact of a new emotional self-management program on stress, emotions, heart rate variability, DHEA and cortisol. Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science. 1998; 33(2):151-170.
2. McCraty, R., Atkinson, M. and Tomasino, D. Science of the Heart. HeartMath Research Center; Institute of HeartMath, Boulder Creek, CA, 2001.
3. McCraty, R. HeartMath learning enhancement programs improve academic performance and behavior in school children. In: Proceedings of the Futurehealth Winter Brain Meeting. Miami, FL, 2001.
4. Barrios-Choplin, B., McCraty, R. and Cryer, B. An inner quality approach to reducing stress and improving physical and emotional wellbeing at work. Stress Medicine. 1997; 13:193-201.
5. McCraty, R., Tomasino, D., Atkinson, M. and Sundram, J. Impact of the HeartMath self-management skills program on physiological and psychological stress in police officers. Boulder Creek, CA: HeartMath Research Center, Institute of HeartMath, Publication No. 99-075.
6. Rein, G., Atkinson, M. and McCraty, R. The physiological and psychological effects of compassion and anger. Journal of Advancement in Medicine. 1995; 8(2):87-105.
7. Luskin, F., Reitz, M. and Newell, K. Pilot study of a group stress management training on elderly patients with congestive heart failure. Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation. 2000; 20(5):303.
8. Rozman, D., Whitaker, R., Beckman, T. and Jones, D. A pilot intervention program which reduces psychological symptomatology in individuals with human immunodeficiency virus. Complementary Therapies in Medicine. 1996; 4:226-232.
9.Lehrer, P., Smetankin, A. and Potapova, T. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia biofeedback therapy for asthma: A report of 20 unmedicated pediatric cases. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. 2000; 25(3):193-200.
10. Tiller, W., McCraty, R. and Atkinson, M. Cardiac coherence: A new, noninvasive measure of autonomic nervous system order. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. 1996; 2(1):52-65.
11.McCraty, R., Atkinson, M., Tiller, W. A., Rein, G. and Watkins, A. The effects of emotions on short term heart rate variability using power spectrum analysis. American Journal of Cardiology. 1995; 76:1089-1093

Best Regards

Sune s.
Denmark

This text was dictated with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8.1 enhanced with Knowbrainer 2005.

I was interested in buying emWave (or another device like it) but I found the info available on the HeartMath website so scant that I couldn't bring myself to shell out $199 for the device. The comment provided on this site by Gabriela Boehmer, PR Director for Heartmath, is almost as uninformative as the info provide on their site. Maybe they should hire the guy or gal from Denmark (Sune S.) to help them communicate with prospective buyers... They'd probably sell a lot more stuff with his help (he's done more to get my attention than HeartMath's marketing and PR folks combined).

Sandra

Hi Guys,

EMWave and other biofeedback devices all work of the same basic concept. Essentially they train you to reproduce the physiological signs of relaxation, hence causing your mind and body to become more relaxed.

You can try this for yourself, by using slow rhythmic breathing. Take a slow 4 second inhalation, then a hold for 2 seconds, and then breath out for 4 seconds. Repeat for 10 breaths. As you breath slowly and rhythmically in this way, you will automatically feel more relaxed.

Unfortunately the problem with biofeedback devices is that when you are stressed, you forget to use them, or they just take plain too much work and concentration.

If you want a whole range of useful stress relief tips, that overcome these limitations, you can visit our site:

Stress Relief Articles

Hope this helps ;-)

Destin Lucas

I have to say I was extremely disappointed when I tried the emwave. I have used the FreezeFramer, HeartMaths other product and found it very useful. The emwave uses a breathing metronome that is too fast and has an extremely long delay in feedback which makes it almost useless. There is something called EZair on the web which is a free downloadable metronome that you can manipulate. I will continue to use the FreezeFramer but the emwave get two BIG thumbs down.

Just a quick comment . Someone said this is a form of biofeedback where the focus is on measured breathing in order to induce relaxation.

This IS NOT the focus with HEARTMATH products. This product encourages active appreciation and love...and is an electronic device that actually shows increased heart rate coherence when feelings of appreciation and love are focused upon.

In the beginning, I also focused on deep relaxed breathing and could never get out of medium/low coherence. It's only when I started actively using this device to project feeelings of love and appreciation that I reached areas of high coherence.

There is science underlying the core concepts that the heart beats in response to our feelings and thoughts. This is not just HEARTMATH's science, it is confirmed by Pritkin and other cardiologists throughout the world.

Also this is a nice personal product, the Freeze Framer software ..put out by the same people is better.