Hey, everybody is Doctor Jo, and today I'm going to show you how to relieve
stress and anxiety with wearable technology. So let's get started.
So as some of you might know, there's a lot of wearable technology these days. But a lot of
wearable technology actually just tracks things. It tracks your heart rate. It tracks your heart
rate variability. It tracks your exercising and things. But one of the coolest things that
I've seen recently is the Apollo and the folks at Apollo neuroscience sent me one of their Apollo's.
And so it doesn't just track those things is designed to actually help you relieve stress.
And that kind of is like how does that work. So before I start going too much into the details of
how it works, I want to talk a little bit about the nervous system, because what it's doing
is almost hijacking a part of your nervous system to help calm your body down and relax
that nervous system. So the nervous system is really kind of just broken down, I'm just
going to go into quick detail because it's very, very in detail, but I'm going to go quickly. So
your nervous system has your central nervous system and your peripheral nervous system. So
your central one here, your peripheral that goes out into your body, the peripheral
has volitional and autonomic. And so volitional is the things we control our movements of our bodies,
what we do with our bodies, and autonomic is those things that we can't control
how we feel sometimes our stress and anxiety. And so basically, the autonomic
system is what we're trying to hijack with the Apollo. So not our autonomic system,
you might have heard parasympathetic and sympathetic. So sympathetic is our
fight or flight. And our parasympathetic is our resting and digesting if you've had that big meal,
and you're kind of recovering from everything. So these two, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic
is basically what influences our stress. So the Apollo, what it does is it helps with HRV,
or heart rate variability. And if you're kind of familiar with that, you might know what I'm
talking about is basically just the measurement of how much variability is in your heart rates,
not your actual pulse is different than that. And so usually, you have an average HRV.
But if you are more stressed, maybe you're more fatigued, you kind of feel down. A lot of times
that's related to a low heart rate variability. And if you're feeling good, and you're energetic,
and you're always kind of in a good mood is related to a high HRV. But a lot of times, if we
aren't able to handle stress, that's what happens with that HRV. So it just kind of stays like that.
It's there's not much variability to it. But when you have that variability is basically
saying your body can handle that stress, react to it and say, hey, I've got this no problem. So
the Apollo basically helps improve that heart rate variability with these little pulses, and it's
almost like vibration type feelings. And it's an interesting kind of feeling on your body. I have
to say that the first time I tried the Apollo, I immediately felt that kind of almost like
endorphins coming into your body. Some people might call it a runner's high. I've personally
never gotten a runner's high. So I don't know if it's like that. But we're all of a sudden,
everything just feels calm, could have been the placebo effect, maybe. But
after I wore it for a couple days, I also have a tracking watch, by a name brand that
actually measures your heart rate variability. And sure enough, mine's usually average. It
shot up the first couple days that I wore it, even though it has gone down after that initial
spike, it has consistently been higher than it was about 10 higher than it was before.
So the way you put on the Apollo is it's really designed for either your ankle or your wrist,
they suggested around her ankle, which for me, I appreciate it because I have pretty small
risk applications as small risks. So it actually felt more comfortable around my ankle.
And so you just put it on, and the the big piece goes on the inside, they actually suggest it to be
on the inside for either your wrist or or your ankle, but you can wear it the other
way as well. It's super comfortable. I was really surprised and you can you can hide it
with your sock if you want to. But it was really comfortable even sleeping in it. And you download
their app. And so their app is connected through Bluetooth so they talk to each other.
But you can you can see here, it has energy and wake up some social stuff. So if you're an
anxious person and you need help when you're being social with people, it has that clear and focused,
rebuild and recover And my favorite sleep and Renu. And so, again, when I tried this,
when I slept with it on, at first I was like this, this is going to bother me, you know, it's
something on my leg, and it's kind of going to, you know, irritate my leg the whole time. At first
I was kind of like, this feels interesting. But sure enough, I fell asleep usually quicker than I
do. I tend to sometimes toss and turn at night and wake up, and it was a lot less each time I used
it, they have a lot of great clinical research. So you know, don't just take my word for it,
go on their website, check out the stuff. They did a lot of pilot studies with children with ADHD.
It showed 100% improvement in their focus. They also tried it on people with PTSD. And it showed
some improvements there as well. And then just people with general stress and anxiety, but again,
it's kind of you put it on and you just go again, the ankle is really where they suggested it,
but you can wear it on your wrist. I did get more of an awareness when it was on my wrist
in the beginning, but it was definitely something that once you start wearing it, you just kind of
don't feel it anymore. So if you're interested in purchasing the Apollo, click on the link up there.
And if you're interested in some stretches and exercises that might help with stress and anxiety,
click on the playlist up there. And remember, be safe, have fun, and I hope you feel better soon.