If you’ve read my article, “You’re Breathing Incorrectly,” you’ve probably guessed that I believe breathing is essential to one’s health. I tell most of my patients that they need to breathe more often and also teach them how to do so. Unfortunately, something as easy as breathing is not easy to do properly or continuously. My patients breathe well during the treatments because I’m overseeing their breathing but they can’t take me with them to remind them to do so everyday, throughout the day. Conundrum! Then I came across a little article about a device that you wear all day that tells reminds you to breathe called the Spire.
If you’ve ever heard of a Fitbit or Jawbone Up, then you will be familiar with the concept of a wearable tracker. Spire is another wearable tracker designed specifically for managing stress through breathing. When I found out about it, I thought, “Great! This would be really helpful to my patients!” The problem was that I didn’t know how it worked or if it worked the way I wanted it to work. I’m not about to recommend a device without knowing its effectiveness.
So here I am, wearing a Spire on my waistband to test out its effectiveness. I just received it in the mail yesterday. By the way, I have not been sponsored by Spire or have I received this for free.
The packaging, by the way, is beautiful.
As you can see, very simple design and pleasing to look at. The device is quite small and is to be worn either on the waistband or on the bra, if you are a female. The side that looks like a pebble is to be worn against the skin.
It measures the movement of your chest or your stomach to see the rate of your breathing. An app is to be downloaded to track everything that it measures.
So what exactly does the Spire keep a track of? It keeps track of the duration or what they like to call streaks when you were calm, focused and active. You can also set up the Spire to vibrate or buzz you for different notifications that you set. For instance, you can set it up to let you know if you haven’t taken a deep breath in 60 minutes or have been sedentary for 30 minutes. You can also set goals for yourself, such as wanting to be calm for at least 90 minutes a day or take 10,000 steps a day.
Since I just started using my Spire, I don’t quite know if it is effective. What I do know, so far, is that it is comfortable to wear but you cannot wear it at night. Since I have been writing this article for awhile, it has buzzed to let me know that I’ve been sedentary for too long.
I will wear the Spire for 3 weeks and evaluate its effectiveness based on the rubric below:
Effectiveness (does it remind me at times that I told it to, has my stress decreased…)
Accuracy
Comfort
The Spire can be bought for $149.95 and offers a 30 day money back guarantee. If you would like to know more about the Spire and how they came up with their technology, please go to this link.
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