Pulsetto Review
This health wearable claims it can help reduce stress, improve sleep, and even ease anxiety Within Cyfe, it had a completely opposite effect.
Disclaimer: I am dubious of wellness gadgets. That a piece of Bluetooth tech can be the answer to my poor sleep, bad mood and high anxiety leading up to stress is nothing short of snake oil claims (pulsetto review). within itself, Pulsetto is the newest non-drug health wearable that claims to do this slowly – very gently stimulating your neck’s vagus nerve with ultra-low radio frequency energy.
I wore it for a full month myself just to put those extremely confident claims under the microscope. So, how exactly did having a Pulsetto neckband on my person for that time affect not only in terms of health but also general well-being?
Nervous System 101
Vagus nerve: The Pulsetto, when in use on your neck region stimulates the vagus nerve- the highway for all parasympathetic nervous systems of our body. Your parasympathetic nervous system takes care of everything you do not need to think about, managing things like immune function, digestion, heart rate and mood (pulsetto review). On the other hand, it is responsible for driving our flight-or-fight state when in perceived stress.
According to Pulsetto Review, vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) can essentially trigger your parasympathetic nervous system which is a way of turning off stress in the body.
Now, VNS isn’t new. When someone says Take a deep breath when you are stressed, they might as well be saying You need to stimulate your vagus nerve (pulsetto review). More effective yet simple solutions include massage, meditation or yoga (win-win), cold showers and even breaking out some tunes A.K.A singing.
Medical professionals have also used VNS for years, initially as a treatment hundreds of people with epilepsy sought out in the 1990s; since then it has been approved by the FDA to help manage pain among those whose life is caught up battling chronic cluster headaches and offered off-label relief from long-term depression.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK has categorized VNS as either Type I or Type II. One method entails implanting a battery and stimulator under the skin with an accompanying wire that is connected directly to the vagus nerve. The other is transcutaneous VNS (pulsetto review) in which the person holds a device on their neck where the nerve exits to be stimulated. This tVNS is the technology that powers Pulsetto Review.
Of note, the Pulsetto is not the only tVNS product available (Pulsetto Review). Nurosym is a €699 ($870) device that uses an earpiece in place of the neckband to target the vagus nerve, while GammaCore — starting from around £237/$295 —is actually a handheld unit and designed specifically for cluster headaches and migraines. This little device is also available by NHS prescription in the UK.
Simple Setup
It combines an intuitive, icon-heavy app that still manages to be quite straightforward and with near-total clarity about what you’re supposed to do on the Pulsetto (Pulsetto Review). A charging cable, plastic neckband and tube of electrode gel are on the box. It’s the same gloop that doctors squirt on your belly during ultrasound exams – it keeps you glued to your skin jointly/more solidly. The 60-gram tube actually goes a really long way, and an extra replacement (250 grams) is only £3 ($3.75).
After that, assuming your neck is well oiled up, all you have to do is switch the Pulsetto on and slip around your neck before waiting for it to connect with its app(iOS/Android) in order to pick out a treatment. If you have little or no experience with meditation, Calm will give you access to more than 100 of mindfulness exercises and video guides for free. These sessions can cover stress, anxiety, sleep problems burnout and pain management practice length ranges from four minutes to around twenty-one (Pulsetto Review). To tweak the session intensity, and have feedback points throughout. Over time, you will be able to compare sessions and see which intensity worked better.
Fizzy Feeling
What does a Pulsetto session look like?(Pulsetto Review) It is kind of like a nervous tick and what happens is that the stimulation causes an odd, not painful but fizzy, pulsating feeling at my neck. Not too dissimilar to a numbing case of pins and needles that exude zero pain, or for that matter tasting something from licking one’s 9-volt battery. (Oh come on, we’ve all been there)
Being a fairly average-sized (English) bloke I didn’t have any sizing issues with the Pulsetto, but at 5″6′, her neck went nowhere near fitting through that collar. There was no similar contact sensation to her skin for the Pulsetto, and when she turned up the max intensity on that tip still nothing happened (pulsetto review). Yes, and when I took a measurement of its circumference at the smallest diameter for the device as discussed on my Twitter account earlier today. Well, you can say pencil neck all you want but it was an issue we needed to bring up!
Pain management is 20 minutes and sessions are short, no longer than a few hours at most. The sessions all feel more or less the same — between a 4 and 6 out of an intensity scale from one to nine, so picking stress, anxiety sleep etc seems like a little more than well worthwhile placebo given that actually only does really just do one thing. As a metaphor, is like choosing to take only paracetamol or ibuprofen for back pain because the box has a picture of a person having that illness.
Does It Work?
My stress levels are annoyingly low for the daily grind of self-employment, parenthood, London living and the ever-increasing bills we all pay to communicate with each other. I, too do not have a mental illness in my past. I may be god’s brimming bin of neuroses but am not actively distressed with looking for help. However, I would still probably do well to find some room for levity.
Being able to break free from the hustle and bustle of life for a few minutes each day I Pulsetto time was were nice treat. This is what apps like Apple’s Breathe have been pushing for ages — the idea of downtime with deep breathing and time out.
In the beginning, I couldn’t really seem to understand if it was doing me any good or not during my initial time with Pulsetto (Pulsetto Review). I grew familiar with the buzzing in my neck quickly, yet after a session, nothing actually felt different. I didn’t even know what it was I wanted, but I definitely wasn’t finding THAT! But damn if I was not having a nice change of peace and quiet with it (from the continual stream coming from my phone, at least).
But is it working? Furthermore, according to their pilot study, regular stimulation of the vagus nerve for three weeks might also lower heart rate and higher HRV (heart rate variability). Based on a 45-year-old man, Whoop says my HRV should be somewhere between 35 and 60. My Apple Watch health data hovers around 38-40. Good to know, but not really an athlete (pulsetto review). Therefore, the question stayed: Would the Pulsetto actually improve my HRV without any modifications in my routine?
Sadly not. During a month or so (hands up, I missed some days here and there) of HRV data my values had barely moved upwards, fluctuating ever-so-slightly as it should. Whoop also recommends reducing alcohol, more sleep, and exercise can additionally increase HRV but I wasn’t going to throw any other sadistic variables into this test.
Verdict
Pulsetto says, 80% of customers experience a dramatic reduction in anxiety and stress within 3–4 weeks. The timing to notice a change is different for everyone, as some can feel it after 1-2 days and others might take up to 4-6 weeks. Of course, this was different for me.
Having aired my skepticism, I really was rooting for Pulsetto to alter the course of everything wrong in my life. I wanted my heart rate to be in the 50s daily use, and I hoped that HRV would drive up. If I could just Be Cool and look Like a good person. No such luck. I suspect if I were having night terrors and suffering a severe case of the stinks, building in some personal time would do wonders. Adding the Pulsetto(Pulsetto Review) into this mix might help to some small degree, but in this case, at least after a month of testing, I can’t escape thinking that so could an extensive foot rub.
But then there is the larger problem here. Over-subscription of drugs is a very real problem, with doctors (at least in the UK) under time pressure tending to hand out blood pressure pills like sweets for an easy victory as opposed to “why not eat less/exercise more”. And, while not being drug-based, (Pulsetto Review) Pulsetto is a little better – designed to offer an easy cure for the symptoms of stress, sleeplessness, and anxiety rather than actually tackle their cause.
