Brain-Altering Devices Now Available

Imagine this: you can change your mood without drugs, meditation, or any of the other more or less undesirable techniques now in use for mood alteration. How? With brain-altering devices now coming to market, reports the Daily Dot:

It feels like a long time since the Quantified Self movement caught us in its clutches. The first fitness bands and their corresponding apps sucked us in; the ability to monitor self-defined statistics made us feel more in control of ourselves. It’s part narcissism, part hypervigilance.

(C) Zen Vibez

But the most significant roadblock has been taking all the information we’re self-quantifying and acting on it. You know you’re taking 1,000 too few steps a day, eating 500 more calories than you should, and getting only a fraction of the outside time you need; actually doing something with the data is the hard part.

Motivation and habit change are hard, and no heart-monitoring bracelet is going to magically solve that problem.

But there are wearables that can. Thync, a brain-shocking wearable, has been heralded as the first mood-altering device on the market. Through gentle shocks, you can use Thync to give yourself energy or calm yourself down, and the team is working on expanding those capabilities.

A recent study backs up what Thync is claiming—its device is a substitute for chemical stimuli like coffee or sleeping pills. The company also gave me information on how its beta testers have been using and reacting to the product. The short version: It’s effective, and they like it.