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posted by takyon on Wednesday July 29 2015, @11:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the aggression-implant dept.

Thync is a consumer product. And that's exactly how we're reviewing it – much like we would a new iPhone or laptop. We share our experience and make our recommendations, but we aren't writing any research papers or conducting any double-blind studies on it (though the company does link to some of those on its website).

After using Thync every day for the last week and a half, I'm convinced that it's one of the most exciting new tech products of 2015. Like taking a hit of Mary Jane, it can push me from an anxious, over-thinking mood to one where I'm cool, collected and laid-back like a THC-infused Rastafarian. And if I'm feeling sluggish or unmotivated, Thync can also peel that layer away, like the sun burning a morning fog off of my consciousness.

I heard about the brain-mod crowd a couple years ago at the New York Maker's Faire. A team from DARPA gave a talk on an electro-stimulation cap they said was meant to fight Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in veterans. This seems to follow. Has anyone from Soylent experimented with trans-cranial electro-stimulation?


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  • (Score: 1) by jdavidb on Thursday July 30 2015, @02:25PM

    by jdavidb (5690) on Thursday July 30 2015, @02:25PM (#215890) Homepage Journal

    It's easy to imagine using the same technique to overcome other reflexive responses, such as a fear of public speaking.

    Yes, the procedure works for anxiety in general! You first learn to stay calm and relaxed and detect this with the meter, then you start thinking about whatever frustrates you, frightens you, or raises your anxiety and practice getting a "calm" reading on the meter while thinking about the stressful situation. Eventually if possible you use the meter while going through the stressful situation, though I'm not sure how that would work for public speaking!

    That process is also called "flooding," which is a procedure that can desensitize you to a stimulus by repeated exposure. In a lot of cases it's better to just avoid the stimulus, but if it's something you really want to overcome, that's the way to go.

    --
    ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday July 30 2015, @04:07PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday July 30 2015, @04:07PM (#215917) Journal

    Can you more minutely describe what it was like to work with the GSR? You had the thing attached to you, and you moderated your reactions according to the readout. Did you feel the difference mainly in your arm, or was it internal? Is it something you could imagine doing yourself, rather than in the presence of another?

    I ask because I suspect many of us are intrigued by the potential of hacking our own brains, but also well aware of the risks of involving any other.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 1) by jdavidb on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:13PM

      by jdavidb (5690) on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:13PM (#215939) Homepage Journal

      Yes, you simply put your hand on a metal sensor and put an earbud in your ear. You'll hear a tone that rises in pitch the more stressed you are. You can fairly quickly learn to control the tone by thinking about different subjects. I used to occasionally put the earbud in while working and discovered that when my boss sent me an IM my anxiety went through the roof! To start you usually sit down alone with the GSR 2-3 times a day for about ten minutes and just practice staying relaxed, i.e., keeping the tone low pitched. The GSR kit usually comes with a CD of relaxation exercises you can use if you can't figure out how to relax on your own.

      After you can keep the tone low fairly predictably you start spending some time during these sessions thinking about something that makes you upset or anxious. You'll hear the pitch rise dramatically! You practice staying relaxed and keeping the tone low while simultaneously thinking about the problem that upsets you. Takes a few weeks to really make that work predictably, in my experience.

      Eventually you can actually develop a well-defined habitual response to frustration: out of habit you relax when you feel frustrated. That seems awfully counterintuitive for somebody who is "wired hot" like me, but it does actually work. Once your brain has been trained not to put its efforts into an angry outburst when something goes wrong in your life, it can actually concentrate on what you want it to do, which is problem solving. You'll be training your own neural network to grow more intelligent rather than letting it simply react like an animal's brain.

      --
      ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings