The science behind AcuSera.

When you’re under stress, your nervous system shifts into high gear. Your heart beats faster and the natural variation between beats narrows. Sweat glands in your skin switch on. Blood flow to your skin shifts, and your skin temperature can drop.

Each person’s stress shows up a little differently. For one person it’s mostly in the heart, for another it’s mostly in the skin.¹⁰ That’s why AcuSera reads them together.

AcuSera’s algorithms analyze your heart rhythm, EDA, skin temperature and movement together, every few seconds, all day. From those readings they pull out the patterns that separate stress from everything else your body does: a flight of stairs, a hot room, a good song.

We trained and tested our model on data collected during controlled stress and rest sessions in the lab.

Researchers have been studying how gentle, rhythmic vibration on the body affects stress. In a controlled trial, people wore a wrist device while preparing to give a public speech. Those who felt a slow vibration, slower than their own heartbeat, reported less anxiety and showed smaller sweat responses than people whose device stayed off.¹

In a Stanford lab study, a vibration pattern people could breathe along with reduced anxiety during a stressful task, compared with a control group.²

AcuSera builds on this work: a gentle, rhythmic vibration, delivered at the wrist, at the moment stress builds.

P6, also called PC6 or Neiguan, is an acupoint on the inner wrist, about three finger-widths up from the crease, between the two tendons. It’s one of the most studied acupoints in clinical research.

A Cochrane review of 59 trials found that stimulating P6 reduces nausea after surgery,⁵ which is why anti-nausea wristbands press on it. Meta-analyses of randomized trials have found that acupressure reduced anxiety compared with control groups.^3,4

AcuSera brings P6 something it never had: timing. Instead of a band you press when you remember, the vibration therapy starts on its own the moment your body shows stress building.

Slow, structured breathing is one of the best-studied ways to calm the body’s stress response, and a slow exhale is at the heart of most techniques.

AcuSera’s P6 vibration is also your breathing guide, so both happen at once. By default the vibration swells for 4 seconds as you breathe in and fades for 7 as you breathe out, a long, slow exhale. No screen to look at, so you can do it in the middle of a meeting. You can switch to the patterns below in the app.

The research above shows what vibration, P6 and slow breathing can do. Next, we’re testing AcuSera itself.

We’re launching a clinical study with academic medical researchers in Kansas City to measure how accurately AcuSera detects stress as it happens, and how people respond to its vibration therapy and guided breathing.

AcuSera is a wellness device. It isn’t a medical device, and it isn’t designed to diagnose, treat, or prevent any condition. The studies cited above tested other devices and methods.