Every now and then, a gadget comes along that’s really more of a gimmick. Normally when I spot them, I go into overdrive to rip them to pieces. Normally.

However, the emwave Personal Stress Reliever® falls into the rare category of a gimmick that has some merit...
Firstly, we have a small silver (or blue) box the size of a pack of standard playing cards. With a heart-beat sensor button built in to the front of it and a small screen of flashing LEDs running up the side, this device looks the business. What business we’ve yet to find out but it’s a good start.

Add a nifty little leather pouch with a belt clip, throw in a heart-beat monitor via an ear-clip and whoa, people start thinking this might be a serious bit of kit!
For the price, I certainly hope it is.

Now, let’s take a brief detour and investigate the World of Health & Spirituality. No matter how geeky, tech or buried in the silicone sand your World might be, you will have heard at some point that breathing in the correct manner is both a part of most forms of meditation and indeed stress relief itself.
Cool, because this little box is designed to help you reach & maintain a level of coherency between your heartbeat and your breathing rate, thereby alleviating a degree of stress.

My immediate question was that if it only registered your heartbeat rate and not your breathing rate then how the heck could it judge any coherency? Tsk, I am such a cynic but I am also not a doctor! The answer is simple – using the LED bank of flashing lights, you monitor your own breathing rate, bringing it in to line and voila, when coherency – whatever that actually means in this context - is attained, you are rewarded with not just a green light but also reward beeps. (I can only presume there is some change in ones heartbeat that allows the machine to know there is any balance...)

Moving beyond the cynical, it was time for me to sit down and put the device to the test. It was the perfect day as I had just chosen to give up smoking, had more work on my plate than I knew what to do with AND I’d had a poor nights sleep. Stress? Bucket-loads, in fact send in the rubbish skip.

Alternating between both the thumb and ear sensor heartbeat monitor, I put the emwave through its paces. Sure enough, by forcing me to focus on my breathing, my stress level dropped dramatically. Ah! Clever. See, chances are you’ll never talk a geek into relaxing very effectively... But give that same person this gimmick, attach the heart rate monitor to their ear and tell them to follow those LEDs up and down and voila!, you’ve just sweet-talked someone into a little automatic stress relief.

Due to the price of this gadget, I am tempted to knock a World of points off it.
I’ve read the ‘science’, checked the CD that comes with it (cheap & embarrassingly basic for the overall price & presentation of the emwave)
The ear monitor doesn’t always work (imagine using that to locate your heartbeat because you’re stressed out and it’s telling you, you don’t have a heartbeat! Stress Relief, my foot.)

Being told to breathe through your heart (Heart breathing) is also a bit of a ‘meh’ point for me – it’s all a bit hippy-sh*t, with a bad mix of pop-science.
These things have not impressed me at all.

However the simplicity of the emwave, its sheer effectiveness makes me grin!

If you’re stressing out (imagine someone who has had a cardiac arrest & is petrified of having another one); if you don’t know or can’t focus without help on how to breathe in a relaxed manner, go get this gadget!

It’s cheeky but effective. Go back and read that again. Cheeky but effective.
It’s a gimmick that works & for those with appalling stress levels, this may save a life.

RRP: £140 - See www.relax-uk.com for more information or to buy.