This New Wearable Tells You How Stressed You Are
And if you show signs of being too stressed, it reminds you to calm the $%&# down.
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This is the age of wearables. You can track your heart rate, steps, activities and more all from a device on your wrist. A lot of that information is just numbers that you then have to review how they fit into your life and health. There is now a bit more of a holistic wearable out there to help increase quality of life, easily.
This device is called Spire and it tracks something the others don’t: your breathing.
The philosophy behind Spire is that by being aware of your breathing, you are not only helping your physical health, but your mental health as well. The device pairs with an app that helps track your Activity, Focus and Calm based on your breathing patterns. You choose how much of the three you would like to have in your day and Spire helps give you reminders and tracks your progress.
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If Spire notices you seem tense, it will buzz and notify you to take a bit of a breather. They also provide ‘Boosts’ within the app—guided breathing exercises—to help you calm down, focus, meditate and more.
Spire can be worn clasped to the front of your bra, side of your bra or to your waistband, in order to properly track your breathing. Of note, when wearing a sports bra (which I often do) I was unable to find a place to clasp the device where it could track breathing correctly, so in that case, unless you want to wear it clasped to your pants (which I found a bit uncomfortable), it may not be a fit for you.
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Spire is a great first step of wearables that understand that part of your health comes from your state of mind. It was an eye-opener to stressors that I often wouldn’t notice without the buzz of the device and nudge from the app.