Discover the transformative power of breathwork with Moonbird. Learn how this handheld device promotes relaxation, reduces stress, and improves sleep.
The moonbird
New research studies have begun to prove what some people have known for thousands of years, that meditation and breathwork reduce stress and anxiety. In fact, habitual use of these practices, for as little as ten minutes a day, will make your body more resistant to the physical symptoms of stress over time. In order to help everyone get into the routine of breathwork, new tools are being developed that use haptic feedback to make practice easy and consistent. Moonbird is one of these tools, and has some unique benefits.
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Moonbird's Mission
Moonbird is a company looking to improve the access to and efficacy of meditational breathwork. By engaging in these practices, you will become more resilient to stress and get better sleep. According to their founders, "Our mission is easy: to make as many people as possible discover how much power they hold. Just by breathing." The moonbird device serves as a physical reminder to do your mindfulness routine, and allows you to fully empty your mind.
In a healthy individual, you should see a high heart rate variability (HRV) and high heart rate coherence. As you inhale, your heart rate should speed up (slightly) and slow as you exhale; this balance is coherence. The moonbird is a breathing coach that will help you to improve these biomarkers, resulting in a healthier relationship between mind and body.
To learn more about HRV and its health benefits, read our full article here.
The Moonbird Product
The moonbird is a handheld device that has two key parts. The first is a pouch in the middle that expands and contracts at a set rhythm. It mirrors the feeling and motion of inhale/exhale cycles. This is what allows your body to flow into the breathwork exercise without the need for counting the cycle of inhales and exhales. The second is a heart rate monitor where your thumb naturally rests. This enables the biofeedback algorithm within the moonbird app to track and graph you heart rate, heart rate variability, and heart coherence.
The moonbird app is meant to pair to your moonbird device to control its rhythm, graph live biometric statistics, and provide access to research and coaching. The app has research on different types of breathing patterns and their unique benefits. These researched styles of breathing are already programmed into the app so you can just select the one you want and begin your practice.
Moonbuddy
The moonbuddy has the same purpose as the moonbird, but without the heart rate monitor. It was designed for children to use with a smaller hand size and fun animal-shaped covers. When speaking with the moonbird team, they mentioned their most prevalent early feedback was that users children loved to use their parents device. So, they designed a version specifically for the kids!
Customizable Breathing
In addition to their preset routines, moonbird gives you the option to set a custom pace. So, if you have a particular breathwork cycle that you enjoy, feel free to set your device to the desired pattern of inhales, holds, and exhales. I have been using a 4-7-8 sympathetic activation breathwork routine, and was able to set my device to mimic the motion.
Unique Benefit
The unique benefit moonbird brings is that you do not need to self-pace your breathing. In traditional breathwork, keeping pace usually involves counting the breath in your head. This can be inconsistent, distracting, and easy to forget about. Additionally, you lose some of the relaxing benefits of breathwork because your mind is preoccupied with keeping the pace. Your moonbird does the counting for you.
During breathwork, my moonbird helps me get into a meditative flow much quicker than before. You can really feel the difference in relaxation when winding down and preparing for sleep.
The other unique benefit I have found is that if you are doing something that doesn't require speaking, streaming tv or reading a book, you can use the moonbird to do long sessions of breathwork without getting distracted. After just a little bit of practice, it becomes very easy to automatically breathe in sync with your device. These long breathwork sessions are good for strengthening our parasympathetic nervous system and build up a resistance to the physical symptoms of stress and burnout.
Researched Benefits of Breathwork
The first key benefit is reduced anxiety and stress resilience. As we discussed in our article on HRV, most forms of breathwork activate the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). This slows our heart rate and releases muscle tension. PNS activation is intrinsically relaxing which can disrupt cycles of anxiety and physical symptoms of chronic stress. Consistent practice strengthens your PNS in contrast to the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which is the direct opposite of parasympathetic system. Modern life inherently triggers the SNS almost constantly which makes that neural pathway stronger and more likely to act as the baseline. This is often the cause of chronic stress and severe burnout which describe a batch of uncomfortable symptoms.
The second key benefit is improved sleep. Everyone can feel the difference between good and bad sleep, but there is too much misinformation around how to get consistently good sleep. One of the easiest interventions is breathwork: it's free and takes less than ten minutes. By activating the PNS, we relax and shift our body into a more relaxed and comfortable state. This helps you to go to sleep faster and deeper than the average lifestyle.
Conclusion: The Transformational Power of Breathwork
Breathwork is a free tool that gives you the power to intentionally change and optimize the automatic processes within the body. As more research is done around the topic, more evidence of its profound benefits are uncovered. Breathwork has the potential to transform your life and the moonbird is a tool to help you get there.
The moonbird harnesses the ancient wisdom of breathwork, now supported by modern research, to reduce stress and improve sleep. This handheld device offers a unique approach to breathwork by using haptic feedback to guide you through breathing exercises, eliminating the need for self-paced counting. By promoting heart rate variability and coherence, moonbird enhances the mind-body connection and resilience to stress. The app pairs with the device to provide customizable breathing patterns and real-time biometric feedback. This transformative practice, facilitated by moonbird, empowers individuals to optimize their automatic bodily processes and achieve a state of calm and well-being.
Learn about heart rate variability in our article here.
Learn about more about different health and wellness topics here.
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