 And this is so powerful like this interconnection this Moment that you understand that your technology actually understood how you feel this doesn't go away What's up everyone? Welcome to simulation. I'm your host Alan Sokian We're still on site for our second partnership with the transformative technology conference We're so pumped to be here We are now going to be talking about augmented mental health We have George left the radio joining us on the show. Hi, George. Hello, Alan. Good. Thank you very much for having me here We're so pumped for this conversation George. Your work is incredible with my feel. We're gonna dive deep into that Taking the suffering out of mental health so so pumped about talking about that as Before we jump in there's just so much to talk about regarding Spirituality and feelings of oneness that we talked to all of our guests about are we really all one? I Think that we are in an emotional level Definitely, we are in a spiritual level like but From a mental health some point that we see it we can see how much our emotions affect our surroundings the the people around us our loved ones and That's just a manifestation of like being in a united world so What we see from an emotional health some point is our actions our behaviors not only affect us as individuals But our families our loved ones our friends and ultimately the world, right? So that's that's for us the the living proof Of oneness as you said interesting so the interconnectedness between all of us at the deepest levels of our psyche regarding emotions and just development psychological development and Just the way that the butterfly effects work and all the chaos theory that happens There's just too profound of a level of interconnectedness in that sense So then that's where the oneness it lies really for for you I would say the oneness like for me it starts from the interconnection of the body and the and the spirit and The emotional self and the physical self and we see this again going back to To what science tells us you see individuals that suffer from chronic conditions such as diabetes or cardiovascular disorders actually Improving significantly when they take care of their mental health for us. This is a proof That actually our emotional self with our physical self are very highly interconnected And I think from that standpoint That's the first level of connection. The second level is how what we do actually affects lives of others and On an emotional level and physical level, of course Yeah Yeah, this is such a profound one is that the more that you heal your mental health state the more that your physical health Heals and health as we know is number one for your moment-to-moment You know number one feelings of interconnectedness feelings of health Just the most paramount absolutely How about feelings of on this topic, which is the question is do you think that our Disconnection from the feelings of interconnectedness are the root of all of the problems we have? Well, I don't like to generalize In terms of like like there's no one reason for the problems that we have However, definitely the fact that we don't pay attention to our mental and emotional health And we only take care of our physical health I think that this Affects the way that we live the stress that we have in our daily lives We live in an anxiety economy as I was reading in an article a few days ago an anxiety economy Exactly, and you see all the behaviors that we have in our lives are affected by by actually not taking good care of our Inner emotional health. So for me absolutely this plays a critical role of course in addition with Physical health and and other well-being activities that we can do but definitely The emotional self and and mental health is of primary importance And then you decided, you know, you all your answers to all of these questions that you've been answering so far have been Emotional well-being oriented all of your answers are regarding that I mean it does seem like even though you said that it's it's hard to just generalize a route But really this idea of emotional spiritual well-being And interconnectedness is in fact kind of in the answer I want now you went off and decided to build a solution using technology, which is kind of interesting Okay, so now teach us about what was this moment for you that you were like, aha I want to go and take on this project and build this and then what exactly is the my feel? So a few years ago I was I was a management consultant. I was with McKinsey in New York. I was working between 80 and 100 hours per week So it was pretty hectic and one of the things that I was not doing was paying attention to my emotional and mental health actually was not paying attention to anything other than work at the time and one one day after a long and Difficult project. I woke up and I just could not breathe and this was the manifestation of like not taking care of my emotional self to my physical health My gosh, and you just woke up and I couldn't breathe. Yeah, couldn't inhale. I was I had trouble to inhale Yeah, it was it was like I had to be trouble to inhale and actually it was a panic attack This is what it was like at the beginning. I didn't know that so I went to my To my physician and he told me we're fine. All everything's good. I would just give back to the your 80 to 100 hours He said you're fine physically, but you need to to visit the psychotherapist. So I visit the therapist shortly after We started having a few discussions for a few weeks and then the panic attacks went away And but what stayed was the realization that? We don't receive any support for our mental health that was one and also that when you When you receive psychotherapy or any type of mental health support, there is no objective data. There is no technology involved Like when I was having this panic attack, I didn't know that it was a panic attack So like all so that was the inspiration behind starting our company My co-founder also had a stir bus who is a PhD in biomedical engineering Yeah, he's really the brains of the company and what we are doing was doing his PhD at the time and He was working on how we can use data from different sensors in order to Identify human emotions or other insights so far for for healthcare. Yes So those two came together, I would say both both our experiences because he had struggled with With anxiety as well our personal experiences struggling with With our mental health plus his subject matter expertise made us start this company with the mission of taking the suffering out of mental health. Yes and Making everyone in the world living joyful and fulfilling lives Yes, and so going back to what we are doing. We are developing We're bringing objective data to the field of mental health for the very first time We're developing a sensor that can recognize your emotions throughout the day We can tell if you're stressed if you're angry if you're happy if you're sad and then by using this data point And cognitive behavioral therapy we help individuals that suffer from anxiety depression stress To improve their mental well-being and emotional well-being. This is a very complicated thing Okay, of course it requires a Co-founder in biomedical engineering PhD that is has been studying this but now the big question is What biometrics are you taking in? How do you parse those for some sort of signal and then what sort of cognitive behavioral therapeutic intervention? Do you deliver after gaining this profile of this person? How often are you taking these data samples type of stuff? So to start from the from from the latter. We we have an end-to-end holistic solution for depression anxiety and stress and burnout That involves our technology which is doing the remote patient monitoring and someone else in other medical fields We would call it We have the mobile application through which we deliver real-time proactive interventions To to improve the mental well-being of an individual We have a licensed therapist in our program who is getting those data and they can one Intervening real-time as well as use this data to improve the effectiveness of their psychotherapy sessions And then we have an educational psycho educational Curriculum through which individuals and participants in our program develop lasting coping skills for for mental health So that's like that's our offering. We are offering our program through health plans employers and life insurers and in the way that In drug and now at the moment. We're already active here in California and in Europe as well We will be expanding soon enough Going what what a way to get to scale fast is to go through health plans if you can book a big 10,000 person company on board That's a big deal and it can it can really help with the emotional Well-being as well as eradicating suffering. Yeah, and I hope you were going here But I do still want to ask the actual biometrics that you are measuring. Yeah, this is very tough stuff to figure out Absolutely. Absolutely. So we have We have more sensors than almost anywhere up in the market right now We're not really wearable device, but because it looks like a wearable device We call it a wearable. We have publicly market. What sensors you have on the device? So we have a galvanic skin response sensor one more time on a galvanic skin response galvanic skin response electrodermal activity activity Like from the heart it's from the skin so I'm missing but from but from heart to skin electrical activity So we are monitoring the response of the autonomic nervous system to different stimuli So what happens when you you experience an emotional state? There are physical sensations that That come together with the emotion that you felt right so probably you're feeling your heart pumping faster when you're angry or You feel sweating when you are stressed all those are indicators that are telling you that an emotional stimulus just happened So through skin conductivity heart rate monitoring skin temperature monitoring We can identify biomarkers That help us classify what you're experiencing right then and there Skin electrical activity skin temperature and then heart rate variability It's a variety of biomarkers from from those sensors So it's not only the variability but other and it's all on the wrist and it's able to measure all the way and then this is so Ridiculous years. You're actually building in a sense of this big catalog or library of emotional states related to skin temperature skin Electricity and heart rate. Sure heart data. It's so it's at the beginning. There are four five main categories is the is joy if joy calm sadness and Distress as well as the more as the state of stress so we have five Categories emotional categories that we recognize a joy calm Sadness distress Wrangler basically and then we have the emotion of stress and stress Okay, so we have those five categories and based on those we trigger different interventions Going back to like how do you trigger interventions even for joy or calm? Yes? Yeah, like to get them more joy and more calm exactly those are some of the most effective ones Because those are the moments that help you at your time of need So when you have a joyful moment because you did something that you really enjoy it We can use that later on at a time that you are stressed and provide you a reminder of this positive moment that you had and then what kind of a Biometric profile are you reading out that shows you that I'm angry and then what is like your intervention or if I'm stressed You want to what is your intervention? So it's a personalized algorithms we're using At the first level we're performing time series analysis of the data in order to identify The areas the moments that you that have significant emotional information That's one of the most difficult things in what we're doing So when we see your data when actually you felt an emotion and when not So that's the first level of course It's very important to take the noise out of those signals very difficult as well Yeah, we have a team of 12 data scientists half of them are post PhD Working on this for the past three and a half years. So it's difficult problem to crack So the first level is taking the noise out of the signals the second identifying where we have the appropriate and important emotional information and then classifying this This moment in one of the different categories that that we monitor so basically the out of the three signals three basic signals that we monitor skin conductivity Skin temperature and heart rate we extract over 200 Proprietary indicators that we correlate with specific emotions, but this is a very personalized model 200 proprietary Indicators and then those will tell you about their emotional models and and this is personalized to the individual It's also then even a step further personalized. Exactly. It's different. So the response your response to stress or sadness is different There are some commonalities That and that's why we do have a pre-trained model, but when we actually Apply our model to you. We personalize it to make it much more accurate and right now We have accuracy close to 90% Both in the lab and outside of the lab Which is most importantly, it's not about How we are able to recognize the emotion the important thing is actually by recognizing the emotional state of the person We help the individual take action about Close-loop feedback happening at the same time stamp a year and it's a via like a notification that they're getting on the device Yes, that's correct. Have you guys have you guys went into thinking about other forms of of triggering people into? awakening to The good old shocks or any of the other crazy There's someone that was actually doing the shocks and yeah, there's all different types of look. Yeah, that's what it is Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think they pitched on Shark Tank. I think they did. Yeah, it was just interesting that there's just some Like what other like this modality is like I don't I hate notifications all my apps are off on my notifications Etc. My phone's always on silent, you know, so how do I use it if I'm like that? So what we have seen to be most effective for our users is not to send a lot of notifications But identifying the important moments within their day three to five moments no more than those that are important for them to take action on and We say three to five because you know if I tell you every five minutes how you feel It doesn't mean anything to you, right? But if I select the important moments the ones that actually You have to do some work on in order to improve that's that's what makes a difference So not a lot of notifications, but what we see is that people take a Great action on those notifications. So 80% of the notifications that we give to the user lead to an action So our users actually interact with their mobile phones with our application close to 40 times per week And they're performing 15 mental health actions as we call them per week so those actions are either mood journaling breathing exercises meditations or Different exercises that have been assigned to them by the psychotherapist. So they're very engaged. They really and The differentiator is that is the data point is because we can tell you when you are stressed And you know this feeling never never goes away. So like I remember the first when we had like our first prototypes I was meditating one day and I Finished my meditation and then I receive a vibration in my wristband the slide vibration, which means that You had an emotional moment and I go back and I see that while I was meditating I had a moment of pure calmness And this is so powerful like this interconnection this Moment that you understand that your technology actually understood how you feel this doesn't go away. Yeah, that's that's very profound I like that one it also kind of reminds me of you know strategies that are being used with muse and so many other of the Neurotex Biotechs that are now available where it is just an immediate closed-loop feedback Are you hearing the birds chirp or getting the vibration or all these types of things where you know that you achieved a state of Interconnectedness of one unity of oneness, whatever I also want to ask you this question because you pointed out. I think it's very important to talk about There's so there's actually an entire suite of of psychotherapists that are at in within the my feel Ecosystem and then they themselves are reading out the emotional states and they They work with the deployment of these personalized either mood journals or meditations or Exercising or all these different types of and you're correct. Yeah, so basically we we're offering our program as an alternative to Traditional psychotherapy for depression or anxiety so the the program includes weekly sessions with our psychotherapists a Usual our sessions are shorter than the usual the typical 60 minutes because of the data that our psychotherapists have Interesting video or in person video video So they are doing because they know how the person felt during the week So you walk in the appointment and your therapist goes Okay, what happened on Tuesday? So much yeah, so you use you start right away with a very focused discussion Exactly that actually makes the session much more effective and this is what we write into the car accident or the breakup or whatever happened job Career change yet. Exactly. And also the other thing is that our psychotherapists are able to help at the time of crisis So Remember my example that I woke up and I could not breathe. This was a panic attack. I didn't know at the time But if I was wearing a field device This would tell me that we see that you're very stressed Let's do something about it. And if the feeling or this stressor didn't go away Actually, it would notify my psychotherapist and then my therapist would text me and tell me George I say that you are really stressed today Do you want to talk? So we have proactive intervention from the side of the psychotherapist It's so what we're doing is basically something that in every other medical field is considered to be a fact But in mental health doesn't exist until now combining objective data with human interventions and interventions through the Technology in order to optimize the outcomes of of users and so far the outcomes that we see are really really encouraging So we see improvements for populations that suffer from mild or moderate anxiety or depression within three to four months improvements that move those people from suffering from moderate depression to being healthy within four months with no drugs No pharmacotherapy just by Atturing to our program and this is the most important thing and hearing what these people say Hearing how these people actually Talk about their field wristband as a guardian angel. This is the the most satisfying thing for us Yeah, that's huge. Yeah having the People that are using the service call this like a guardian angel When your interventions are also so few like you said three or five a day It's just concentrated on the most profound times for you to reach out to them It kind of gives them like a like the three or five peak emotional moments of your day Catalog it's also very unique like that to be able to like visualize this data and itself is very unique and And interesting and so if I don't have a health plan I can just sign up on a monthly basis as well We right now we don't have open our program for for direct consumer. However, we will be conducting a large study So we would be welcoming individuals that have already asked us to participate in the program We are really really fortunate to have many people interested in in participating So if you are interested or if anyone of the people that listen to us today are interested We would love to to include them in the program in this study And sign up my field that call exactly so they can go to our website Just send us a note and we will include them in in the study and the study is looking to be conducted like early next year Or something. Yes, that is correct. So we'll be starting in January Yes, and this is going to be of course nothing. This is going to be of course their data fully anonymized No one has access to this data So when I say study don't mean that we're going to take the data and use it in any other way But what we're trying to do is add many more people into our program To actually evaluate the effectiveness of specific interventions and calibrate it to make it as effective as possible So that's why we have opened those studies. So if they go to www.myfield.co They would be able to subscribe to that. Yeah. Yeah Interesting. This seems like something great for anyone to be able to sign up for and then the question also becomes like The price of the hardware is expensive you did you guys actually have to manufacture that yourselves? Yeah Yeah, so you to design that and then manufacture it yourselves. Is it manufactured in China and China? And then Susan it's you know shipped here or Europe or wherever afterward And then the cost of that must be at least several hundred dollars for the we don't charge for the hardware We charge only for the psychotherapy sessions So actually right now if you go to a psychotherapist and the cost of like the out-of-pocket cost could be $200-$300 per hour. So our sessions cost just $50 per session And the goal for us is that we have the health plan pay for those sessions instead of the individual So instead of the individual is paying any money out of pocket in order to be able to provide support as many people as possible We want to have the health plan. The health plan pays my feel then. Exactly. We don't we don't charge for the device So we don't charge anything the end user. So you provide these companies with the devices for their employees and then interesting And then you just get paid by the health plan Wow, very fascinating Just this this question and I must ask because it seems like everything is going in the direction of Measuring a constant stream of our biometrics and then being able to predict pathology or to somehow Rejuvenate me to youthful homeostatic capacity or other thoughts about being some sort of an AI coach based on my unique Blueprint and gifts that I want to bring into the world. Does it totally feel like it's going in this direction? I think that The AI will help us deliver many interventions When we can't have a human delivering those interventions We don't believe in actually taking the the human the psychotherapist the coach out of the loop We still believe that In the relationship in the therapeutical relationship between the therapist and the individual as being a very important factor of improving mental health So we but we believe strongly in amplifying the human in using technology and using data to make the Job of the human much more effective and this is what we're trying to do in our model We we don't want to to take the psychotherapist out of the model Of course, we want to deliver 24 hour support to our to our users through AI But when the psychotherapist is not available to provide this type of support and then the data to the psychotherapist to provide them with The strength with the power to serve more individuals at the same time in in a much better and effective way Okay, and then this next question then right alongside that one is do you think that Humanity is a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence Tell me a little bit more about that. How are you thinking about that? It's an interesting question But I ask the questions here So I can't ask even one I mean the like Like if I understand correctly like you're asking if we are interconnected not only on emotional level But also on a biological level is that is that the question and then is even our Evolutionary purpose is the next order of where we're going is literally making digital superintelligence that We act as a biological bootloader for that digital superintelligence. Yeah. Yeah, I I This is an interesting subject that to be honest a philosophical one. I would say I Think that like Definitely there there are forms that of intelligence that are going to be created in the future That are probably very different from what we have right now Definitely AI will be able to be doing much of The things that we probably don't want to do There are going to be a few ethical Dilemmas in the in the near future about the relationship of AI and and humans if you will I think that I'm not sure if we are going to be the ones that we are going to empower the super Intelligence this digital super intelligence. I envision and I'm hopeful that we're going to be able to to live and coexist together in in a way that would be actually Beneficial to not only to humanity, but to the planet as well. Yeah, and Yes, why I prefer to see that We're gonna have a symbiotic relationship with with AI and and digital and Intelligence and different intelligence forms than the ones that we have today Not that we're going to empower them and then we're we're not gonna be around for that Like I don't like a matrix scenario to happen. I would prefer like a Life where we you know, we are able to use AI so we can focus on the more creative Stuff that the AI is not good at doing All its permutational capacity just out out plays us by leaps and bounds and then why yeah And is this the first yeah, like the first generation of AI or are we AI ourselves? Yeah, it's like it's like a very philosophical discussion interesting one But I think that I have a follow-up true. What is the purpose of this creation? Of our creation you mean of this so great question as well I would say it's From my perspective again, I can only speak for myself is how can we enable collective? Emotional intelligence how we can actually Improve that as individuals and as a society as a unison That that would be like my my interesting you're you're all on like the flowering of consciousness exactly Yeah, this evolutionary process especially at an emotional well-being level collectively flourishing And with the entire interconnectedness of all and not just humans, but all all I love this Last question is what is the most beautiful about this? About this future about this reality about this creation. What is most beautiful? Again most of my answers are Gearing towards like mental and emotional health, but for me it's the the absence of suffering That comes from in many cases not only from physical health issues, but also from our behaviors our mental health But not only the absence of suffering as well as the the existence of vitality and like joy For me it's all about how can we live a life of joy and love and When we are suffering This makes it much harder to do that George thank you so much for coming on the program and that was Extremely extremely enjoyable for me. Thank you. Thanks for all the great work with my feel. Holy cow Thanks everyone for tuning in we greatly appreciate we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below in the episode Let us know what you're thinking on all the epic conversation points that we hit check out the link in the bio to myfield.co Also Twitter is your preferred platform Twitter Facebook is good too. Okay, great Go follow those links in the bio below as well. Hopefully you can partake in the January 2020 study as well Go get involved this sounds super exciting super future-oriented eradicating suffering focusing on emotional well-being Check out the links in the bio below to the transformative technology conference as well Check out all those links in the bio below huge shout out to them huge shout out to Brady Springer Thank you very much for co-producing greatly appreciated brother. Thank you. Thank you And also check out the links to simulation in the bio below help us grow Help the artist the entrepreneurs the spiritual leaders the organizations in your communities grow You can find our patreon cryptocurrency paypal links in the bio below You can also find the cool link to design cool merch and get paid all those links are in the bio below Go and build the future everyone manifest your dreams into the world. We love you very much Thank you for tuning in and we will see you soon peace