What If Calm Were A Skill

You can track stress all day and still feel like you can’t turn it off. That’s the problem we tackle with James, the creator of Ohm Resonance, a screen-free nervous system regulation device built for founders, parents, and high performers who live in constant low-grade urgency.

We get clear on why wearables often create a weird relationship with health data: they diagnose, but they don’t treat. We also talk about why mindfulness apps can be valuable yet hard to sustain when you’re battling a noisy mind, and why so many people abandon the habit. From there we go deep on resonance breathing, a research-backed breathwork method that uses a specific breathing rhythm (often 4 to 7 breaths per minute for adults) to increase heart rate variability (HRV), support parasympathetic activation, and create a felt sense of safety and calm.

James breaks down the physiology in plain language: baroreceptors, blood pressure regulation, and how breathing can “phase lock” the heart, breath, and cardiovascular system into a powerful biofeedback loop. We connect it to vagus nerve function and the vagal brake, then explore practical applications like post-workout recovery, sleep support, anxiety reduction, and long-term longevity habits. We also walk through the Ohm design itself: a beautiful lamp plus a warm, weighted stone that guides your breathing with light, sound, and touch, and signals when you cross into a calmer state.

If you’re trying to build a daily practice without adding more screen time, this conversation will give you a new path to measurable calm. Subscribe for more longevity and healthspan tools, share this with a high-stress friend, and leave a review with your biggest question about HRV or nervous system training.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Calm Matters

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is the Longevity Loop Podcast, and I'm your host, Brett Wallace. In every episode, I bring you the leading voices in longevity, plus my own insights, put the world's best strategies directly into your hands, making elite longevity strategies accessible to everyone, regardless of your background. So let's jump into the loop starting right now. Welcome to the Longevity Loop podcast. Today I have a very special guest with me, the creator of Ohm Resonance. We'll be talking about that. James is a let's call him a burnt-out founder and a new dad, which uh the new dad experience I definitely is something I can relate with, um, you know, as far as like calming our nervous systems down in there. And so basically, James turned this stress into a completely new way to train his nervous system, uh, a system as we'll get into uh using breath and light uh just instead of another screen, which is something that I'm always frustrated with, with so many new apps coming out. It's all about screen time and something I want to move away from. And obviously, uh James, uh my guest today, that feels the same thing. Um, so he was the founder of Ohm, uh, and this device is built about resonance breathing, which we'll get into uh a little bit. And it basically uses that light sound and touch to guide you into a really calm, peaceful sense of um being, I guess would be the best way to put it, without you know, putting a screen in your face. So I personally pre-ordered one, and that's what made me reach out to James and his team. And uh yeah, I mean, it's again, I'm like I'm super happy that these products are coming online, uh, just because I was really frustrated with the previous experience of us of um uh another company, basically will say, that used a screen. I just wasn't happy with the whole thing. So um it's just a really cool thing. So if you're listening to this and you're a founder, a parent, or any high performer that lives in a constant state of buzz, which I imagine most of us, um, especially if you're entrepreneurial minded, you're always gonna be in a state of at least mild chaos. We're gonna show you a different way uh that you can relate to your own nervous system today. So that was kind of a long-winded intro. I apologize for that, James, but let's get right into it. Um and uh James, welcome to the show. I've been really looking forward to talking to you ever since the first email that I sent, what a few months back. Um, and just for the people just hearing your name for the first time, uh, how do you want to introduce yourself today as far as, you know, I said the long spiel about the founder and stuff, but how would you say it in your words?

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Yeah, well, first of all, thanks for having me on. Um, I love talking about this stuff and I love meeting people who are interested in it. Um, I would say uh I studied engineering. Um, I've always been very interested in products and people and why we do certain things and why we don't do other certain things and um how to make good products and uh started a company out of college with a couple friends um and uh grew that for eight or nine years and um then got this new idea for the product that that we're talking about today. But that that's kind of my trajectory in a in a nutshell. During that time, I also had two kids. So um I just really wanted to figure out a way to just kind of balance everything, you know. That's that's the only way I can put it.

Building A Packaging Company Fast

SPEAKER_02 3:43

So you what you know, before you came to this in your previous company, what did your day-to-day look like as far as um, you know, I mean, it sounded like fully loaded life that you're living and and the burnt out part, but how how was that looking like? How was that fulfilling itself in your day-to-day?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Yeah, so um I uh was working on uh new technologies for materials um and uh specifically within packaging. So around like 2015, 2016, you had all these new companies start to get started, like HelloFresh, Belay, Brendan, Procara, Sunbasket, these meal kit delivery companies. And um, their premise was we can get you food faster and cheaper and more uh, you know, more uh more choices, we can pre-portion it. Um and uh and those companies really start taking off. They got, you know, hundreds of millions and venture funding. Um, but they had this big problem of people getting these boxes every week. Um, and they're sending out, you know, hundreds of thousands of boxes every every week. Um and they were they were using styrofoam. So uh me and two friends, we said, hey, that sounds like a problem that we can we can tackle. And um, we came up with a bunch of really cool ways to insulate food uh without using any plastic. Um so we'd use these extra fruited vegetable starch, we'd use paper. I think I probably have some of the pictures behind me. Um and we created these, these, um, these really cool novel materials and then the machines to build them too. And um, you know, I remember we got our first like$15,000 purchase order and then$100,000, then we got a million dollar purchase order, then a$10 million purchase order. And so, you know, we scaled the company from just three people in a garage to, you know, 600 employees and manufacturing and you know, uh three different states, um and uh hundreds of millions in in revenue. And um, I loved it. It was it was great. Like I just I love building things and and thinking about new ways to do things. Um, but also it kind of just absorbed everything, you know. It was like companies are like a baby, they just have needs, like and they they don't care. Um so uh when I kind of started that with a couple of friends, you know, I didn't have any other responsibilities. You know, I could just sleep at hotels and work 24-7. Um and then marrying my high school sweetheart, and um we had, you know, our first kid and second one, and I started realizing like I just can't maintain this level of um like output, you know, there's there's gotta be a balance to it. And I don't really have a ton of time to like go to a spa or even to have a consistent gym practice. Like I need something, um, and I didn't I could eat drink the athletic greens and and stuff like that, but I wanted something like a little bit more meaningful. I was I have aura ring, I'm tracking my sleep, and it's always bad. And like so anyway, I went down this path trying to understand what you could put into someone's life that could really help them, you know, health-wise, physically, but also mentally, uh, just have more capacity for for everything on their plate.

The Search For Real Recovery

SPEAKER_02 6:53

That's cool. I mean, like, I think a lot of us can relate. I mean, I certainly can relate to that, like that's that go, go, go, go, and like realizing at a certain point is like, okay, I can sprint in this, but like when you have a company like especially like that packaging company that sounds like it was just growing, and yeah, you just hit this moment at a certain point, it's like, okay, like what am I have gonna what am I have to sacrifice here? You know, is it sleep? Is it my nutrition? Is it the gym? You know, it's like and you can kind of try to do all the things, but then you realize that you know, you you'll you get the stress and everything. So so walk me through this, like, I guess an aha moment is all I can say. Is maybe is like you realize that this is not sustainable. And so what brought you to resonance breathing and like how did you fall into that rabbit hole?

Why Wearables And Apps Fall Short

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Because that's a pretty niche, yeah, very niche. Yeah, extremely well, my my favorite thing is finding like stumbling upon or discovering like insights, you know, like like a like a new thing that's like, oh, I never knew that before. And that's like a really packaged up, clean, tight insight on something. And so uh a string of those came together for me. And the first one was that um wearables, you know, one in five people have wearables now and they're they're getting better and better at tracking, you know, whether it's you know, pulse wave velocity or even blood pressure or sleep or steps or heart rate characteristics, heart rate variability. Um and uh, but they don't actually change you, you know. So they are at best, they can get towards like a diagnostic, but they're not a therapeutic. Um and I started asking people who have wearables, like, how do you feel about your wearable? You know, and like a lot of it was negative. It's like I'm kind of somehow tied to looking at the data, but I don't like the data. I don't like if I look in the morning and I have a bad sleep score, it kind of sets me up mentally to have a bad day. So like these companies, um, they got a lot of it right, but there was something that seemed off about the relationship people have with the data because we have more and more and more health data. Um, and so I started thinking, okay, that's that's interesting. We need something that can help move the numbers, not just show the numbers. Um, and then the other uh kind of second insight was like I've tried, you know, waking up in headspace and calm and 10% happier and insight timer, all these meditation apps and mindfulness apps. And I think that there's a lot of value to that. Um, people have been doing that for thousands of years. There's there's probably a reason evolution has kept that around in terms of a human technology. But it's also very difficult because um, one, you're starting with the mind, and the mind's a very noisy place and it's easy to give up, you know, um, especially if you kind of fall into the camp of like, I have a hard time shutting off my mind, you know, and then uh retraining yourself to just have open awareness. And it's um it's something that's it's hard to gauge whether it's working until you put in a lot of hours, you know, thousands of hours probably. Uh so you and you look at the data, and you know, 96% of people who download a mindfulness app uh don't open it again after 30 days. These companies are getting on like huge top-of-funnel, you know, get you into the app, hopefully maybe get you unpaid, but most people just go right out the bottom. But hundreds of millions of people have downloaded these. So there's there's a signal there. They're they're looking for something. They're looking for inner peace or a break in their day or a sleep routine or a wake-up routine or a better relationship with themselves or how to be a better parent, or their doctor told them they need to have better stress management or the therapist. So, like there's a lot of uh inroads to these apps. But um, I just kept thinking that they're they're the wrong delivery vehicle. You know, one, because I was mentioning they they're they're very cognitive, they talk to you, it's content. But two, they're tied to the phone. And, you know, I don't know if you read the Jonathan Haidt book um about the anxious generation and just phones and you know what screens have have have done to us. Um the behavioral training tools, you know. And so I uh just started looking at the phone and you know, it's optimized for productivity, for communication, for social connection. It's not really designed to be a calming tool. Um so I wanted to build something. Uh and then around that time, I also read the book uh Breathe by James Nestor. Um yeah, yeah. And it's it's great because it goes like a mile wide, you know. Um, but uh, so that kind of led me into nervous system regulation research and reading, you know, PubMed and Google Scholar and everything I could find on what does it mean to have a well-regulated nervous system? And how do you how do you start from the end as far as biometrics and then work backwards to the kind of the intervention? So, like the sweat on your hands, you know, the the your palm temperature, muscular activation, blood pressure, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, tidal volume, all of this is constantly just broadcasting. It's all just and but but it's but it's quiet, you know, you need you need technology to pick up on it. Um but it's bi-directional. So if you, you know, 80% of vagus nerve activity goes upward to the brain. Um, so literally your brain is like in a cage and it doesn't really know what to feel, but it has a dashboard of of the whole system. And if the dashboard has a bunch of red lights on, it says, I should probably feel pretty stressed right now. So if you just change the dashboard, you can kind of work your way back up to subjective feeling. And that bi-directional relationship was really interesting to me, which led me down the breathing route and that into the really cool, you know, psychophysiology that's associated with that, which we can get into if you want. But that's kind of how I went from um just kind of not knowing anything to then down into resonance breathing.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

Yeah, that that's super cool. Yeah, I mean, I'd love to get into the vagal nerve because that's also something that I see a little bit more, and I've heard about that years ago. I remember listening to Ben Greenfield talk about it, and it was just kind of something that was kind of hard to test and see if it's improving, and then so many people poo-pooed it, is like, yeah, it's you know, whatever. And then now I want to say in the last probably year or two, there's a lot of like vagal nerve stuff coming online that's like, no, this is a real thing, um, and pay attention to it. So, yeah, I mean, I would love to get into talking about that, and then also, you know, just kind of deep diving a little bit more like what you're talking about, like getting into our bodies there, and just touching back on a couple things you said about the wearables and the stress. Like, so I have you know, the whoopstrap, the Apple Watch, yeah, and it's terrible. There is no interactivity. I think Apple Watch has the breathing thing where you can kind of breathe in and out, but it seems woefully inadequate for you know to doing those things. And uh, I just wrote about an article, uh, you know, is your wearable gaslighting you basically on spanner? And it's just like, yeah, sometimes I wake up, I feel great, but my HRV is like in the red. Or sometimes I'll wake up and I'm like, man, I feel a little trashed from yesterday's bike ride or something. And then, you know, it's like, you're ready to go. Go, let's go run a marathon. So it's always a little bit of a disconnect there. And then the other thing about the meditation, yeah, like the monkey mind is like such a real thing. Anytime I'll sit down for you know a 20-minute meditation, you know, the first 10-15 minutes of it is just trying to quiet my mind, and it doesn't seem like till the last part of it I get any benefit. And like you said, it's really hard to measure. Is like, is this working? Is this really working? I've done it for three months now. Like, I think I feel good, you know. So it's just nice to have like a little bit more of a physical tool to kind of accompany that. Um I guess it's sorry, sorry to interrupt. Oh, I was just gonna say it it seems uh, because I I haven't actually held the ohm um unit yet, but it seems like it could be a great accompaniment to a meditation as well while you hold it to kind of meditate and then it kind of guiding you and like with it like breathing and the lights and like that.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

But I mean I don't know if that's what you had in mind for it or yeah, it's definitely gives you um different various anchors for attention, like attention focal points. So like you can hold the stone and you can just focus on the the the haptics, you know, if if if if you want. And you can, you know, anytime anything else comes into awareness, you can sort of let that go and in return. But then you can like just jump lanes and focus on the sound of the lamp breathing. Um, if you want to open your eyes, you can look at the light breathing, you know. So you can kind of have these different lanes if you want to pair it with more of a meditative practice, um, for sure.

Nervous System Signals And Biofeedback

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Okay, very cool. Yeah, guys, and I know your website does a great job of explaining it. It's a beautiful website. Uh anyone listening, you know, go over what's the website's name? It's oh ohm ohmhealth.com, correct? Uh just ohm.health. Ohm.health. Okay, yeah. So go check that out because it's it's it's a super cool, beautiful website, and it really illustrates how this thing works. Because when I first got tuned into looking for resonance breathing and then hearing about the ohm, you know, then going to the website, and you're like, oh, I kind of get it now, you know, and and it and it's and it's it's a really cool thing that yeah. Um, so walk us through the the machine there. Like it you you hold a stone that you just had in your hand that vibrates, and is that what coaches you to breathe and then the light? How do how does the whole system work uh as a unit together?

Resonance Breathing Explained Simply

Vagus Nerve And The Vagal Brake

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah, well, um well, let me tell you about what what we're trying to do first. Um, like like if if if the unit is successful. Um what so what we're trying to do is we're trying to get you, whoever you are, from wherever you might be right now, somewhere between sympathetic and parasympathetic, into a parasympathetic dominant state. So the parasympathetic side of your nervous system is is the dominant signal that's coming into your heart. That's you can you know measure through your respiration, you can measure through you know hand temperature, skin connectivity, um, blood pressure. And so we're trying to get you there. And um you uh one way to get there is to put your body in a state that uh resembles what a what a very strong parasympathetic reaction would look like. And so what it looks like when you're in this rest and digest dominant mode, um, you have much larger heart rate variability. Um and again, if you if you induce larger heart rate variability, then your mind assumes that your body is calm and it will let things relax. It actually, like there's a lot of research tied to it's not just calm, it's about safety. Um, it feels safe. Um and it's an interesting, you know, word because when we're in traffic, we don't think, oh, I'm in danger. But part of us, a little small part, actually has a lot of fear, you know. Um, so there's uh there's something interesting. I want to actually research more into fear and safety in terms of uh how those words have evolved. But anyway, we want to we want to put you into a parasympathetic state. So what we want to do is we want to increase your heart rate variability um as much as we can, and not just like 20%. We want it to go like 200, 300% higher than it is. Um part of what we'll do that is just relaxing, just sitting still, laying down, taking a nap. But it turns out that we have this weird quirk in our physiology that if we slow down our breathing to certain rhythms, uh, there's a feedback loop that happens in our cardiovascular system. Um and uh it's it's where the idea of resonance comes from. So if you have like someone, you know, any any system with a feedback loop has a characteristic of resonance. So a swing, for example, uh, let's say you're pushing your five-year-old on a swing. There's only one rate at which you can push that will require very little energy, but the amplitude of the swing will go higher. And that is the swing's resonance rate. It's a physical property of that swing. It's related to the length of the chain. Um and uh any other rate at which you try to push, you'll you'll interrupt it. You know, like it it won't work. So you have to, you know, and people do this naturally, they push a swing at its resonance rate. Um and uh our body has a resonance rate for how often it it updates our blood pressure. Um so you have these things in your heart called baroreceptors, they're sensitive to stretch and they're you know always trying to regulate your blood pressure to make sure that it doesn't go too high, it doesn't go too low. It's like remarkably um efficient at stabilizing blood pressure. Now, what happens is if you take a slow deep breath in, you actually expand all this area in your thoracic cavity and you create a uh a pressure differential. And you have a bunch of blood that rushes into your lungs and your heart just because there's more room and it rushes in. When it does that, your heart says, Hey, blood pressure is higher, you know, I need to react to this. Um, and so it'll change your uh your heart rate to try to lower that blood pressure. Um, when you breathe out, you're contracting that thoracic cavity. Blood's going to the head, it's going everywhere else in the body, and blood pressure is actually falling momentarily, you know, just while you're exhaling. So the heart will also try to respond to that. Now, the the really cool part is the heart is not very fast. It responds over about, you know, um, four to seven times a minute is about the fastest it can respond to these things. So when you slow your breathing down to four to seven times a minute, somewhere in that range, then by the time the heart has caught up, it's already gotten the other signal to go. And so it starts going like this and it starts going like this to try to catch up to where it's supposed to be. And what does it mean if your heart rate's going way up and way down? It means there's huge heart rate variability. Um and the coolest thing is you can see this right away on a graph. It's just it pops out when someone's doing resonance breathing because it's a it's a cardiac signature that you would never see anywhere else. You don't see it when you're sleeping, when you're relaxing, you don't see when you're meditating, when you're walking. Only this style of slow breathing produces such a distinct uh rhythm in your heart. Um breathing, um, breathing is tied to heart rate and uh breathing is tied to blood pressure. So when you're in this state of of exact resonance, your blood pressure, your heart rate, and your breathing are all moving in the same frequency. Um and when that happens, your body interprets that as I'm in a very deep state of calm. Um and it'll, you know, turn on and off the associated other reflexes to mirror that. Uh so your hands will get warmer, blood circulation improves, you actually get a lot more blood flow to the head. Um and uh that's why it's been studied for memory and attention. Um, it's you know linked to sleeping better, it's linked to lower anxiety, lower depression, lower blood pressure. And again, you have to put a lot of input into it. It's not just one time that'll do this. But um uh the the other sort of part I'll tie back into Vegas nerve there is so you. Know your heart's bumping around. Um, and the heart's really interesting. It's it's trying to do so many things. It's like trying to play whack-a-mole, but it's only one muscle. So that's why it looks so so irregular. It's because it's trying to, you know, when you breathe in, it's trying to help distribute oxygen. Uh, it's trying to manage blood pressure. Um, and uh, so there's actually a bunch of different frequencies imposed on your heart. Um, when you slow it down, all those go away and you have one smooth dominant frequency. And every time your heart goes up, let's say it goes from 55 to 80 on the inhale, because it's big swings like that. Then it goes from 80 back down to 55 on the exhale. The mechanism that drops it down is your vagus nerve. Your vagus nerve is the is is the break for your heart. Um so uh so hearts are hearts are meant to beat at about a hundred beats per minute their entire life. It's like from the moment you're born to the moment you die, your heart's designed to just go da. It's supposed to beat that way, but we evolved with a break that goes on. It's called the vagal break, and it's governed by the vagus nerve. And the reason we evolve for that is because it's an efficiency mechanism. We don't need a heart that beats that fast all the time. But when you get stressed, let's say you get cut off in traffic, or let's say, I don't know, someone knocks on the door when you're on a call, um, the break goes off. That's why the heart is under a spring compression. That's why our heart rate increases so quickly. Um, because it's it's actually going back to its normal set point. Um, so the heart's under a spring. That spring's controlled by the vagus nerve. When you lower your breathing, you create resonance and you exercise that vagal break on and off, on and off, which is why it's good for conditions where there's less vagal activity, like stress, like anxiety, like sleep dysregulation. Um, it's like um it's just exercise for that vagus nerve in a way that is extremely natural and that people have been doing for 5,000 years. 5,000 years.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Wow. So how did so my immediate thoughts is applying this to athletics, and maybe Dr. J will get into this when when we have our conversation, but with this resonance breathing, we're talking about like, you know, kind of calming or whatever, but I'm sure this also affects and helps athletics, right? Because if if it sounds like if you get into a stressful situation or you're, you know, you're running in like zone two, you know, whatever, also being able to, you know, have this smoother type breathing make your makes your whole body and system more efficient, um, that must have an effect, right?

Athletic Recovery And Longevity Upside

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Yeah. I mean, this isn't something you'd want to do in competition. Like you want to be stressed. Stress is it, there's so much good value to stress. It helps us um react, you know, get things done. Uh the problem is we don't turn it off. Um, we turn it down, but we never really turn it off. One thing in athletics that this has been studied for, and Dr. J could talk way more about this. He's he's uh like a leading expert on this stuff, but I know a little bit, um, is post-workout recovery. So they have, you know, let's say 50 people run on a treadmill to 80% of their max, you know, for 15 minutes. Then they'll have another, you know, group that does the same thing. After both groups get off the treadmill, they'll have one do resonance breathing for five, 10 minutes and they'll see uh heart rate recovery. Who's whose group uh gets back to their average heart rate the fastest? And it's their group that does the resonance breathing because they're putting themselves into a state of calm um rather than just waiting for their body to naturally return there. They're sort of accelerating that that shift.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Wow. Okay, that's cool. Yeah, I'm I'm really excited to like dig deep into that with Dr. J there, because that's a lot of times so many things with, you know, like our focus at Spanner is really longevity, right? And all the things that go into longevity, right? And obviously exercise is a big part of it, but also mental health and calming your body, like you said, you know, like lowering that stress response is uh is something that is shown over and over and over to produce huge benefits, uh, specifically when it comes to health span, quality of life, and and those type of things like that.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

And it's because, you know, um again, we're designed, we're animals, we're designed for having nervous system balance. Um, but we're so smart and we are just such good tool tool builders that like we we've we've just created uh crazy technology that's no longer natural, you know. Um then there's a great graph of like human technology from 500,000 years ago to today, and it starts out flat, flat, and it's you know, fire and the wheel and concrete, and you know, and then it's like boom, you know? And um, and so like we and then of course at the top is like chat GPT. Um, but technology can can change like that. You know, our environment can change like that, our tools can, but we're governed by biology and it cannot change that fast. So like there's a great um, I think it's in the museum in in Munich, but there's a there's a great um uh statue that they made of a caveman, like a Neanderthal, but they shaved him and they put him in a suit. And you look at it and you're like, oh, we actually, he looks like if I saw him on the metro, like I might not even know that he's 500,000 years old, you know. So like we haven't changed that much. And we still have this amygdala and like this, this, you know, kind of fear response. Um, but but our environment has changed, you know. So the problem is if we're in these low-level ambient stress states, uh, your body, it shuts off digestion, it shuts off like core recovery processes, it shuts off peripheral blood flow. Um, that's why chronic stress is one of the leading causes of preventable illness. It's because it it it you never get time to recover. And if you do that for decades, you you get sick. Yeah, yeah. My my dog, like, you know, I look at a good example of nervous system like recovery, she just sleeps all day, you know, and then uh the mailman comes, you know, and and she she has a stress response and she has cortisol and her heart rate goes up, and um, but then after that's gone, then she goes back to parasympathetic. And like the the she doesn't know that there's a war in Iran, or you know, it's just like so the problem is we're so smart, we can project fear through time and space that it's it's hard for us to turn off a stress response. Anyway, I'm fascinated by all this.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

But yeah, I I remember reading a book. I mean, it's probably been 10 years ago, but the the name of the book was why zebras don't get ulcers. And that was kind of basically what you just described, you know, is like the zebra just gets chased for the you know, the the the run of its life, you know, by a lion, escapes it and then just kind of you know shakes it all out, yeah, starts eating grass again.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Yeah. Yeah.

Why Modern Life Keeps Stress On

SPEAKER_02 28:46

And if anything like happened to us, you know, we'd probably be like shaking for like hours or even days, and you know, yeah, we'll be in therapy for a year, yeah. I know, right? Post-traumatic stress syndrome and all of that stuff. So um, yeah, I mean it's it's it's just you know, and and and like you said, everything is changing around us, and we still have you know the lizard brain that like tells us to, you know, like to be fearful and these things, and we really don't have the technology or this the inherent systems to kind of like turn that off, um, just because like you said, like things are evolving way faster than humans are evolving. And so it it just you know, it's something that you know, which brings us to you know the ohm. So um, you know, and the the other thing I was just like thinking about too, it's like the ritual, like you've designed a ritual object here. It's not just an app, it's not just like whatever, but it's like this ritualistic thing that you've designed, and you know, and and and what I'm really hoping from it is that you know, it's like I have a a morning ritual that I go through all the all the time, and like adding something like this to it to like because I get up before the sunrise and it's like having that light glow, and like, you know, it's like um I don't know, it just sounds like the ultimate like ritualistic thing to start out your day and really get your day off to a good start there.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

That was yeah.

Designing Ohm As A Ritual Object

SPEAKER_02 30:11

So when you're first designing it, uh what like I'm imagining you like prototyped and sketched a bunch of things. What did it initially kind of look and feel like? And what were you trying? I mean, I guess I can extrapolate what you're trying to capture in that first version, but but what did the kind of prototyping and versions look like as you came to this final um form factor?

Live Demo Of The Lamp

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Yeah, I mean that's a great question. And it was it was a journey. I mean, so we had um firm conviction that we wanted to build a product based on this foundation of resonance breathing, um, because it's uh very well supported, you know, in the in the in the literature. And it's something that's also really natural. Um, but the next part was how do you manifest that in a product that changes behavior? Because so many well-intentioned products just fail to change behavior, you know? Um and uh the first step there was let's build an algorithm that can detect the perfect breathing rhythm for anyone that learns. Because again, that that four to seven, you know, uh time window, for you it might be six, for me, it might be 5.4, you know. And you really want to hit it exact to get that really, really nice heart response. Um, the typical way to do that is to sit down, you know, with a clinician and and take 20 minutes and try breathing at different rates and and have them review the results, say, oh, this was your best rate, but that's too long. So we wanted it just to adapt to whoever's whoever's using it. So we came up with an algorithm that that does that, that's um really, really novel. And um the second thing we wanted to do was we wanted people to know when they are in a parasympathetic state. We wanted again, goes back to the meditation of is it working? We want it to be very clear when your body's in recovery, you know, a restorative state. Um, so we wanted to communicate that somehow of like, hey, you've crossed over. Um, and uh so the first thing we did was, you know, polar chest strap and um believe it or not, connected this to, I don't know if you know what Phillips Hue lights are, but they're like light. Yeah. So the idea was let's run an algorithm with a you know EKG chest strap um that would turn the lights blue if you're in a parasympathetic state. Um let's just see what that feels like. Does it feel does it feel like you have agency over your nervous system? And um, so it was a really ugly product, but you'd have this poor chest strap on and you start the you know program and you'd watch a breathing pacer. And as your body calmed down, the lights would then turn blue. And it was like, oh, that feels really cool. It feels like I just did something. Um and uh so we said this this thing has to be really special. Um, let's let's get rid of the phone, or at least, you know, let's not make the phone mandatory. Um, let's have this be something that lives always on. It's always on, it's always in your environment. It's not something that you put away or runs out of batteries. Um, and let's make it out of really special materials, not just like plastic. Let's use glass and you know, let's use um a sapphire lens on the, you know, sensor. Um, let's like really make it, because this is a very special thing. The the vehicle deserves to be really special too, you know. And um, all of this kind of came us, uh, you know, came out and and we started thinking, this should be a lamp. It should be a really beautiful glass lamp. And it should have this tiny little pebble on top, like a little candy dish that you can scoop out. And the pebble should be heavy. And when you pick it up, it should feel warm. And the pebble will be a sensor. And we're gonna be reading characteristics of your nervous system right through the palm. Um, palm's a great place to get uh data. Like if you ever um cut your hand back, then you can just see how much blood flow there is right in your palm. It's a it's a great signal surface. Um and so glass lamp with a little weighted warm pebble on top that vibrates in a pattern for you to follow with your breathing. And then the lamp also, when you whenever you grab the pebble, there's no buttons, no on buttons, just whenever you pick it up, the lamp also starts to follow that pattern too, with with light. And then inside the lamp, you'll never see it, but it's actually a little speaker in there, and so you can hear it kind of breathing up and down. And then when you enter into that parasympathetic state, then the lamp turns blue and you get a nice little song. And uh I actually have one right here if you want to see it.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'd love to deal with it. I mean, there's so many times that you see a website and you're like, oh man, I really want to like check it out. But I mean, even like how you're explaining it, like made out of like the quality materials of glass and um the rock. And I actually didn't realize that the rock was warm as well, which is really, really quite amazing.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Yeah, yeah. We we're trying to touch on as many senses as we can and and and skip the cognitive part of us and get right down to the nervous system part. And the nervous system, the language of the nervous system is is is sensory, you know. Um, it's it's it's pressure and temperature and vibration and feedback loops and moisture. That that's all like at the nervous system layer. So we want to have the product do that. As you can see, we went through lots of different designs on what this thing should look like.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

That's super cool. And then that's obviously the final output.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Yeah, this is it. And when you're not using it, um, it's also you know, just a really nice lamp. You can you can just there's a little stone up here, you can just turn it and just turn the light down. And then if you keep turning it, you get white noise. It's just a nice little way. Yeah. It's probably filtering it out. I don't know if you can hear that, but I can hear it. Yeah, that's incredible. So even if you're not using it, we want it to just be something that like it's just delightful to have around. Um, and then like I said, whenever you want to start a breathing session, you just pick this up. And you know, it knows the stone's gone. And I just hold this in my palm. And this is a pattern for me to follow. That's an inhale. This would be an exhale. I can feel the light rhythm also here. So if I want to close my eyes, I know where the light is. I can hear the breathing. And uh I'm talking right now, so I'm in more of an activated state. But if I were to give this 30 seconds or a minute or so, I could I could shift over into that calmer state. Um, and it'll it'll tell you when when when you're approaching that too, it'll get warmer. Um but uh I don't know if it no, the the color temperature of of of the yeah. Here, let me see. I'll try not to take too long on this, but let me see if it's just in 10 seconds if I can can you see that getting a little more orange? Yeah. With practice, you can kind of shift it over easier. And see how, see how it just started talking? It shifted me out of that blue. Yeah. And then up top here, you have this this this light, this halo light we call it, it's a timer. So every three minutes it'll complete and give you a little chime.

SPEAKER_02 36:55

Um got it. Yeah, and I can kind of hear that that background, that breathing kind of like that kind of sound.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

And so put this back, and then it just goes back to being uh an ice, ice lamp.

Session Lengths And Building A Practice

SPEAKER_02 37:12

Man, that's uh that's so cool that that the the actual stone in the top is a is an actual dial. I didn't I didn't realize that at all. And I also didn't realize that the halo is the actual timer. So is there a set amount that you breathe uh in a session, or can you just I mean obviously you just did it in a couple breaths and then you know did it, but is there like a recommended session length that it that it has?

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Yeah, so again, it it's it's we want to ease people into this, and we know people are busy, they don't have a lot of time, I don't have a lot of time. Um, so we recommend at least three minutes. Um and that's enough time that it's not a huge time commitment. Usually you have three minutes, and but it's enough time for you to really shift your body and sort of start to feel that acute change of what it feels like to have a calm body. Um and what we're hoping though is that you can work your way up to like 10 to 15 minutes a day. Um, that's when you start to see not just like those state changes, but you'll see more trait changes over time. And most of the research has been done with like with that sort of 10 to 15, sometimes even 20 minutes a day for six to eight weeks.

SPEAKER_02 38:18

Yeah, which sounds great because you know, it's like most of us don't want to become breathwork monks.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

And so it's just like you know, like we have we have lives, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

Yeah, like working with what you have, you know, and it's like I think that's part of the thing with even meditation, you know, like like we talked about, it seems like I mean, 10 minutes is I mean, obviously just closing your eyes just for a minute is a a beautiful thing, but to have just those like short bursts throughout the day just to kind of a little reset, and obviously everyone has three minutes um to do their so um that's that's so amazing. And then that little demo is like so amazing too. So so I'm gonna get this in the mail. Um, so the first section, the first session, I plug it in. I I know there isn't a companion app. Um and and is that to like set things up or like so I turn it on and and then what? I pick up the stone for my first session. How does that work?

Optional App And What Data Shows

SPEAKER_00 39:14

So um if you want to see the data um and you want a little bit more behavioral tracking, you want to just kind of get under the hood a little bit of of what's going on, what we're sensing, then we have this app for you. Um and uh you you have a little bit of work to do there, you set up the app, it's gonna ask you to bridge the lamp to Wi-Fi. That way it'll be very instant and you know, you have everything, it's all secured. Um, but like for example, what you're gonna see, and again, not many people have ever seen their heart do this, but that's the pattern that your heart goes into when you're in resonance. Um, so see how heart rate's going up and down, up and down. And that's actually phase locked exactly with your blood pressure and and your breathing. They're all one curve. Um, and then we'll show you, you know, how long during that session that you you were able to hold resonance. We'll show you some things that you've probably never seen around the the power output of your heart, um, both locally. Yeah, yeah. Um, because it again, if you think about the resonance system, it's kind of like um uh how much um how much amplitude you can produce with breathing. Um and then we'll have, you know, uh just some other kind of basic things like um your practice, you know, with the days and stuff like that. Um we're also open to any suggestions around like how to make the app more engaging. There's a lot we could do, but we don't we don't want to overwhelm you with data.

Where It Fits In Your Home

SPEAKER_02 40:36

Yeah, I I feel like you know, you you just mentioned the the aura ring, and I had the aura ring forever. And when I switched to the whoop, I was like, oh man, I missed the aura ring experience. Because the the the dashboard was just so much cleaner and just way easier to interpretate, interpret the data that I was getting there. Um so yeah, I mean I think that's part of it. But that that screen looks really cool because it sounds like you can do a session and then you can kind of check in with the app later just to see what was happening um on that. Um have you seen I I know you have test units out there. Where have people been keeping it in their home so it actually gets used? Is it like in the living room or like in the bedroom, or like what where's the data that most people have been that you found that most people have been using it just to get a feel for that?

SPEAKER_00 41:27

This is a question I think about probably every day, and I don't have enough data on it, but we're trying to figure out is this a bedroom object or is this like a living room or office thing? And um what we do know just from like atomic habits and just behavior change in general is it needs to be in your course. You know, like if you have it in the sunroom or something like that where you don't often go there, you really won't use it. Um, so I like the idea of the bedroom, and that's mostly what we're seeing is people putting it there. Um I have them obviously all over my house. So um, but uh uh living room is also, you know, you compare this with watching TV. Like that's that that the that that's that's the cool part because you're you're just trying to change the body, you know. Um, so when I think about like what what actually leads me to use it more, it's like can I stack it with something else I'm already doing? Um and uh you'll you'll start to notice really cool things. Like if you let's say you're watching like a really intense action movie, but you're doing this, like in and and and let's say you're wearing like an aura ring, it'll actually give you credit for like taking a nap because you were so relaxed, even though there was because again, you're just manipulating your body. Um so bedroom is kind of where where we're hoping this lands. Um, but you know, you could really put it anywhere. We just want you to put it anywhere that that that's conducive to building a practice. The bedroom's nice though, because it it's we can piggyback off the going to sleep routine, you know, and then and then the wake-up routine. Um, right now we don't have like an alarm feature on it, but you know, it'd be not too hard to put a nice little sunrise. Um, and then you kind of shut that off by grabbing the stone, doing your morning uh nervous system regulation.

SPEAKER_02 43:06

Yeah, that would be really cool. And that would be something that you could push out to just uh firmware update so you would actually have to update the hardware.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Yeah.

Kids And Modeling Screen-Light Habits

SPEAKER_02 43:14

Yeah. I mean, I I know I've tried a couple alarm clocks in my past that just that I've looked for that specifically, where it's just like a glow. I know Phillips had a version and then um there's another one that but what I didn't like, I I don't need to see what time it is. Uh, you know, I know some people will will disagree with me, but I I don't want any screens or anything. But if there was just something that just mimicked like a sunrise or something, like yeah, that would be super cool for me. Um so we talked about kids. Have you have you tried this with your kids? Have your kids adapted? Do they was it so so intuitive that they were just able to like get into it? Because that's one of the things that I'm excited to try with like my five year old is like, hey, check this out. Like, let's see if you can get your breathing to change and

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Yeah. Um well one thing is it's very um accessible. You know, like there's no login or or or numbers or you know buttons. So it's very tactile. Um my kids, they they understand what it's for. Um they're too young to be able to get into that resonance state, though, because the way we wrote our algorithm was we were looking for adult ranges of resonance. And it's fascinating because kids are shorter, goes back to like if you if you take a swing and you cut the chain in half, it has a higher resonance frequency. Um so kids actually need to breathe around nine, 10 or 11 breaths per minute to create resonance, cardiovascular resonance. And our algorithm, our algorithm is only is only searching for like evidence of calm within a within a different different band. Um but uh but they do like playing with it um and they kind of know what it's for. And I see it as a benefit of like I'm kind of modeling good behavior, you know. Like I'm like hypersensitive now to like my kids seeing me looking at a screen, you know? Yeah, because like otherwise, yeah, mom and dad are always just like looking at screens, you know. Um, and uh uh so I'm excited about kind of making it part of the home, part of like, hey, this is just what mom and dad do. You know, they sometimes they sit down and they just slow their breathing down. And growing up, that was normal. Like I want that to be the future for them. We have noticed that once you get to about like 10, 11, 12, um, you're able to turn it blue. Um so uh uh I don't know exactly where that cutoff is, but I know you know five is probably a little bit too too young.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

Yeah, that makes sense because when I do the breathing exercises with my son, you know, we'll try to do like the long breath out. And obviously the lung capacity is not there and the the heart capacity and stuff. But but like you said, like that's one thing that I try to really demonstrate to my son is you know, when I do my workout routine in the morning with like if he wakes up and kind of wanders into the room and I'm doing some yoga or kettlebells, you know, I just continue to keep on doing it and let him watch because like you said, like those habits, hopefully, you know, fingers crossed, ingrained into their head, you know, as far as like waking up, not getting into a screen immediately, like you said, like like so many people do, um, you know, and and then just having like this beautiful morning routine that sets you up for you know success in that day. Um so when you help people like to see like their early wins, so it's something that sticks. Obviously, you have the form factor here, like the ritualistic part of it, like I said. And people see results pretty fast, it seems like. And so that I I think would help them kind of uh keep on doing it, like you said, because that that funnel of like the normal meditation app, you know, like millions of people sign up for these things and then just go right back out there. Um, you know, when people are seeing early wins with the Ohm device, um, you know, it it seems like it's gonna be something that people are looking forward to, you know, because they can feel it um immediately. Um that sounds like does that sound or how what am I trying to say here? It sounds like that's a true experience, right? With the people that you've had it in their houses so far and using it and like the kind of the follow-through so it doesn't just escape and become another lost item on your phone where it's like so you built this thing of beauty, so like it reminds people to actually use it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:33

I I I'll say two things there. One is um we've gotten feedback consistently that hey, this is the most effective tool in terms of like this idea of nervous system regulation, of uh making calm a daily practice. So that's great. That's awesome that that we got that feedback. But also, it's just really hard to get people to do things. So, like um, so even we we've tried to remove all the friction, you know, we've tried to make it sensory, we've gotten the you know, we've tried to make it live biofeedback, we've um made it so it's always plugged in, so it fits in. But even with all that, I don't yet know if people are gonna use every day. I hope they do. Um but it's something that uh you you learn to appreciate over time. It's very subtle. It's like, okay, that I didn't feel different after that. But like, okay, just do that for a week though. And then like you'll notice that you actually do look forward to just sitting down and doing it. The problem is it doesn't feel like you're doing anything, you know. Um so and and and and we're so trained towards urgency, productivity, hustle that it feels wrong to slow down. So the whole thing we're battling as a company is this idea of urgency and like always on. And I hope we have the right tool for it. I think we've I think we've a really good tool, but it but it still is a hard problem.

Adoption Challenges And Early Wins

Shipping Timeline And What Comes Next

SPEAKER_02 48:52

Yeah, I mean, the the thing that I can envision, and well, I guess I even experience this because I have a longevity marketing company that I help longevity clinics, you know, like get found online. And that's one of the things is like longevity, even though it's becoming more mainstream, it's still it doesn't really fit into an existing category, really, for the most part, you know, because like people are like, Yeah, I need a doctor, and yeah, I need a nutritionist, and you know, all these things. And it kind of seems like that's the thing that you're approaching here. It's almost like a longevity type of technology that doesn't really fit into an existing category because it's somewhere between breath work and you know, you made this beautiful art object, and then it trains your nervous system, you know, to increase your HRV and vagus nerve, vagal nerve training, and you know, so that that's always a challenge, right? The the marketing part, you know, is always really challenging, you know, to get people to think about that. But like I said, like how I found you, resonance breathing was that thing that I found and I started looking into it, and then immediately that's when um you know the um came up for me. Um so that's super, super cool. Um well, James, I know I know your time's super valuable and we're approaching about an hour here. Anything else that you'd like to mention or or or talk about with the company or or the future of it? You got any other obviously you're still in pre-launch here, and I think the the actual units are shipping in June. Is that is that correct? Um, August.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

Uh okay, August. August war target. And I wish that was faster, um, but we are being very methodical about how we're doing it. We have three rounds of tooling built in there. Um, and uh so I I would just say for anyone who's pre-ordered, I sincerely appreciate your patience.

SPEAKER_02 50:39

Yeah, I mean, I I I feel like I've been part of things before, like the the like the Kickstarter type things. And I mean yours clearly is a Kickstarter, but it's like that anticipation is so much fun, and then sometimes you forget about it, and then when it comes, you're like, oh man, this is so cool. Like I I really do like it's always like a kind of a a Christmas uh moment. And then and like I said, like this is that. Do you have a a vision of like future products that you might dive into or or different um things? Have you had any ideas of like what you might be making even more so in the future after this, or as complimentary tools?

SPEAKER_00 51:18

We have a couple ideas. Um, a large portion of our like pre-order, you know, population is um like therapists. Um and so like a a tool for not home, but like a wellness center or a therapist office, or even we've had like principals of schools call us and like, hey, is there something we can put into a quiet corner at a middle school, you know, that helps with um so there's different uh facets of like where nervous system regulation shows up. We sold, you know, units to uh the special forces, um, and you know, as part of their human performance program. Um, but we're we're trying to be, you know, the the company that takes this idea of nervous system care very seriously and builds really good products around that. And where that shows up, we have a couple ideas. Um, but what I'm really excited about is once we get these out there, just listening to the feedback and saying, hey, well, what do you think is is is next? You know, where um obviously what we what we want to do is we want to keep making this stone more intelligent. Um uh there's there's more data I want to be able to pull off the body. Um, but as far as like form factor, uh I'm I'm kind of excited to see like what the market feeds us.

Where To Preorder And Closing

SPEAKER_02 52:28

Yeah, well, I think there's a lot of room um with this approach that you're taking, is like the beautiful form factor and then just building intelligent tools into it, because at least that's what I see is that there's so many things that are just kind of missing that form factor. Um, you know, and really having those tools that you can integrate into your life into like, oh, this is so beautiful and it helps me like perform and like it's a conversation object, you know. Like, yeah, like when we were just talking a minute ago, it's like, where in the house do you think it's it? You know, like I think it's like, oh, my son's bedroom would be cool because it's just kind of like this nice glowing light that you know, even if it might not work for him, I can do it and then you know we can like do that together or have it on the coffee table, or you know, just like these different things. So um I I think there's a lot of room in the market for that form factor in beauty. So I mean, uh just kudos to you and and uh your team, you know, for making something that's so beautiful and uh I'm really excited to check it out. Um, James, this has been so cool, so awesome. I think a lot of people are really gonna, you know, hear their own story in in in yours of the, you know, like or you know, the stressed out, you know, founder and and just just created a different relationship with it. And you know, and since you've created a tool to, you know, really have a different relationship with your stress, um, I think it can really help all those people out there. Um, so for the people that want to learn learn more, um, to see the device, um, grab one for themselves, you know you know, obviously in pre-order now, uh, where should they go?

SPEAKER_00 54:00

Uh so ohm.health, ohm.health um is where you can go for a pre-order. If you want a demo or if you just want to nerd out on heart rate variability or like just email me, call me. Like I I love talking to the people who are interested in this and the people that we're trying to serve. So um I think that's uh the highest value you know that I can do with my time, I think is just talking with people like yourself and and others.

SPEAKER_02 54:22

Nice, nice. Well, uh, this should go out to lots of people, lots of people like will hear this, which is really cool. So, you know, everyone you're hearing this, go to ohm.health and uh reach out to James. I I think that's how I reach out to you on the contact form on the website.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

So yeah, and just James at ohm.health.

SPEAKER_02 54:40

Um just okay yeah, James at ohm.health. And uh yeah, and just ask any questions you got there. And I'll definitely report back to with you uh on my own experience once my device arrives. And then for everyone out there, uh we've got a part two of this uh with Dr. Jay Wiles, and uh he's the the medical director or kind of team, leads up that team, right?

SPEAKER_00 55:07

Yep. And I I I took you here, he'll take you there if you want.

SPEAKER_02 55:10

So yeah, yeah, we'll we'll I'm sure we'll get super nerdy uh with all of that. So um, all right. Well, for everyone listening, um, if this hit home for you or if you know of someone else that might be high stress, founder, parent, um, send this episode to them. Uh let him check it out because I really am super excited for this product and uh I can't wait to check it out. Um, so that's it for today. Uh just you know, just a reminder, breathe a little bit slower, put your phone down a little bit more often, and uh we'll talk to y'all in the next episode. And James, thanks for uh joining us today. Thanks for having me. All right. This is the Longevity Loop Podcast.