Josiah,
They now market their device as "emwave" and previously as "Freezeframer." I have one and I believe Hans does, too. I used it as a heart rate monitor, not its intended purpose (since I have high vagal tone anyway). Therefore can't comment.
Essentially, you synchronize your breathing with your heart to maximize respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). This is just heart rate variability. As I recall, the optimum breath rate is a in and out every 6 seconds, or 5 complete breaths a minute. There is also a device marketed to reduce blood pressure and all it does is give you a signal to breathe and you follow this for 15 minutes or so. I'm traveling and on a very slow connection, but if my memory serves, this document describes the breathing. The author started by playing with a Freezeframer device [
www.coherence.com]
The other part of heartmath is thinking kind/loving thoughts in your heart. If you Google Loving kindness meditation, there is a Buddhist approach to this. See the loving kindness reference near the end of this article and the reference to increasing parasympathetic tone: [
www.theatlantic.com]
I believe the device probably works, I'm not sure you need to spend the money on the device if you 1) adopted the in/out 6 second breathing and 2) coupled it with loving kindness meditation, then practiced regularly for 15 minutes a day, you'd get most of the benefit without the high tech bells & whistles.
George
