Lief is a wearable ECG patch that measures your heart and breath, then uses that information to teach you how to control your body’s stress response. Here’s our Lief review.
What is Lief Therapeutics?
Lief is a unique health product found online at GetLief.com. The product is designed to help you manage stress and anxiety. After placing Lief on your chest, the device will track your heart and breath using ECG sensors. Lief will then teach you to control your body’s natural stress response through gentle, safe, biofeedback.
The ultimate goal of Lief is to reduce triggered responses and keep you mindful and in control throughout your day. the makers of Lief call this process “self-regulation” and describe it as “the ability to monitor and positively control your behaviors, emotions and thoughts in-the-moment.”
The product was launched after the founders visited Tibetan monks in the Himalayas. While there, the team tracked the monks’ profound ability to control stress responses and regulate their bodily responses. Lief wants to replicate these benefits.
How Does Lief Work?
Lief consists of a sensor and an app. You place the wearable sensor on your chest, where it works as an ECG smart patch to track heart activity.
When Lief detects that your heart is showing signs of stress, Lief will vibrate to help guide your breath. You don’t even need to check the app – just follow along with the vibrations.
After placing Lief on your chest, you set a routine. That routine trains your mental and physical skills to improve your ability for self-regulation. Each daily session takes less than 3 minutes. You can do the sessions anywhere at any time – they’re basically just breathing exercises.
Here are some of the daily sessions you can undergo with Lief:
- Control: Learn how to control your heart rate with concentration and focus, allowing you to increase your performance.
- Resilient: Develop a calmer nervous system and mental state that makes you more resilient to external events.
- Nudge: “Reinforce your own unique practice or exercises from your coach or therapist with a gentle nudge”.
- Calm: Reinforce healthy deep breathing to relax the mind and keep calm throughout the day.
Essentially, Lief Therapeutics works by encouraging you to run through various self-control and self-regulation exercises throughout the day. By undergoing these exercises on a daily basis, you can learn to have greater control over your body and your bodily responses.
While you’re going through a routine, the Lief wearable tracks your heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), and breathing in order to recognize stress and anxiety patterns.
You can enhance the effects of Lief even further by signing up for the company’s self-care management program, which is personalized coaching support where a certified professional will create personalized exercises for you.
The Lief Therapeutics App
All of the physiological information gathered through Lief is managed through the Lief mobile app. One of the coolest parts about the mobile app is your Lief Health Score, which allows you to track your daily progress and practice exercises based on your body’s needs.
The app also promises to uncover and untangle thinking patterns that are negatively affecting your body. Using the app, you can access the following features:
- Thought records
- Progress reviews
- CBT interventions toolkit
- Audio exercises
- Mood rating
Lief Therapeutics Pricing
There are two versions of Lief, including the Lief Smart Patch and the Lief Pro. Here’s how pricing works out on the official website:
- Lief Smart Patch: $229
- Lief Pro: $279
What’s the difference between the two? The Pro version, according to the makers of Lief, “is for the data lovers, professionals, and coaches”. The main difference is that it can sync your continuous HRV data to an online dashboard, where you can then analyze, graph, and export your data into other third party programs.
The Pro version also comes with more memory (128MB versus 64MB), which means you can record health data for one month without syncing to the app.
Who Makes Lief?
Lief is made by a company called Lief Therapeutics. The company’s health platform was developed in partnership with Stanford and UCSF clinicians. The founding team includes Rohan Dixit, Nathanael Wolfe, Billy Frese, and Narayan Brach.
The idea for Lief was launched in 2014. However, the founders attribute the idea for Lief to a research trip in India back in 2009-2010. During that trip, they visited with Tibetan monks in the Himalayas, where they discovered various self-regulation exercises and tracked the brainwaves and heartbeats of monks while meditating. The founders described the journey as “profound” and gained insight into the insane self-regulating powers of a monk.
By September 2014, the company had created its first prototype. In July 2015, Google invited the company to their campus to present a Google Talks keynote. The company was also accepted to the Hax hardware accelerator program in August 2015.
In November 2016, the company launched its Kickstarter, where it successfully achieved 800% of its funding target (totaling about $400,000 in money raised).
In March 2017, the company plans to ship its first batch of production units, which will be the 5th prototypes of the system. General shipping to the public will begin in June 2017.
Lief Tech Specs
- Sensor: ECG sensor, 3-axis accelerometer
- Feedback: Haptic (vibration) feedback (two haptic engines on the Lief wearable patch)
- Battery: Up to 1 week of use before charge, charges via micro-USB in 1 hour
- Data: Heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), breath cycle, and movement
- Insights: Stress level, breath/HRV coherence score, vagal tone, autonomic nervous system (ANS) balance, and mood
- Wireless: Bluetooth LE
- Storage: 64MB of data storage (stores about one week of data), 128MB on the Pro version (stores about a month of data)
- Biocompatibility: Medical-grade silicone is hypoallergenic, and the stickers are safe and easily removable
Should You Buy Lief Therapeutics to Relive Stress and Anxiety?
Lief is an ambitious project that can vastly enhance your mindfulness and ability to self-regulate your body. It’s a unique product that is scheduled to launch in Spring 2017. Today, the Lief Smart Patch and Lief Pro are available to preorder online at either $229 or $279.
While wearing Lief, you can track your breathing and heart rate to gain insights into your personal health. If Lief detects that you’re stressed or anxious, then the device will vibrate to guide you through various stress relief exercises. You can also go through stress relief exercises throughout the day, which involve sessions less than 3 minute in length.
If you’re interested in relieving stress using a wearable ECG sensor, then Lief is one upcoming product you should certainly pay attention to.
