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Next Level Human
As humans we have a job to do. In fact, we have four jobs: to earn and manage money, to attain and maintain health and fitness, to build and sustain personal relationships and to find meaning and make a difference. Your host, Dr. Jade Teta, is an integrative physician, entrepreneur and author in metabolism and personal development.
Next Level Human
Unlocking Neuroplasticity with the Halo Device with Dr. Kultar Garcha- Ep. 303
In this episode of the Next Level Human Podcast, Dr. Jade Teta interviews Dr. Kultar Garcha, the Chief Medical Officer of Halo, about the Halo device, a transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) technology. They discuss the device's applications in enhancing neuroplasticity, mood, focus, and sleep, as well as its differences from other brain stimulation technologies like EEG and TMS. Dr. Garcha shares insights from real-world data, highlighting the device's effectiveness in improving mental health and cognitive functions, and emphasizes the importance of consistent use and adherence to protocols for optimal results.
takeaways
- The Halo device uses transcranial direct current stimulation to enhance neuroplasticity.
- tDCS is different from EEG and TMS; it modulates brain activity rather than measuring it.
- Real-world data shows over 60% improvement in mood, focus, and sleep among users.
- Repeated use of the device is crucial for long-term benefits.
- The device can be used alongside meditation and mindfulness practices for enhanced effects.
- User adherence to the stimulation protocol significantly impacts outcomes.
- The technology is not a shortcut but an amplifier of existing practices.
- Understanding individual user profiles can help predict device effectiveness.
- The device has shown promise in both well populations and those with mental health challenges.
- Future research will focus on understanding the synergy between tDCS and other wellness practices.
Check out Halo:
https://hcp.flowneuroscience.com/
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
2:50 Why Behavior Change Is Hard
4:28 What TDCS Is And Isn’t
8:00 Measuring vs Modulating The Brain
11:15 Brainwaves, Prediction, And Outcomes
13:44 Single Session Effects And Plasticity
17:11 From Elite Sport To Deep Practice
21:22 Booster Not Shortcut
25:32 Real-World Data On Focus, Mood, Sleep
Connect with Next Level Human
Website: www.nextlevelhuman.com
support@nextlevelhuman.com
Connect with Dr. Jade Teta
Website: www.jadeteta.com
Instagram: @jadeteta
Welcome everybody to uh the Next Level Human Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Jade Tita. I am here today with Dr. Coulter Garcha, who is the chief medical officer at a company that um puts out a device called the Halo device. And I have asked uh Dr. Coulter to come here and uh educate us on this device. I am a novice to it, but I'm very interested in it. And he has graciously come on to help us understand this new technology. And I'm probably gonna butcher this, Coulter, but let me let me just give the sort of summation and my interest and then let you educate me and correct me where I go off the rails. And so my initial uh interest in this is that from my perspective, I have been in the functional medicine space, and you and I were talking just before you got on here. You are an MD as well, and we were talking about this idea of prevention and disease and lifestyle versus pharmaceuticals and this whole idea. I have been interested my entire career on why I tell people to do certain things and they're unable to do them. And this has gotten me into the world of really trying to understand how the brain works, how it uh is changeable in the ways that it can be, and how that might be used to help people uh reinforce their practices around whether it's performance, because I trained a lot of athletes in my day, or whether it's changing one's diet, or whether it's reducing stress, or any of these things. And my understanding is that this particular device is a device that is a transcranial, basically current system that sends a current into the brain that adjusts certain areas of the brain to make them more plastic or more changeable. The term you and I might use is neuroplasticity. And for you practitioners who are here, you probably know that term. But I am super interested in all the ways that this is applicable. And I also want to understand from your perspective what is this machine actually doing? What are its best use cases? And I'll just let you get started in helping us understand why this device and what it can be beneficial for.
SPEAKER_01:Great. Well, look, thank you for having me. That's the perfect intro in terms of sort of the device. Uh so yeah, look, I'm an MD, uh, I'm chief medical officer here at Halo and also uh flow neuroscience. And I'm also working uh in family medicine. So I'm a family physician, I continue to work in that field, and I've also had a pivot. So if I move from my early career into more recent, I have moved towards functional medicine, towards lifestyle medicine. And that's because as I practiced, I realized I wasn't really having the impact that I thought I was having or believed myself or even was trained to have. I'm sure we'll cover this as we continue our conversation. So, yes, this device, transcranial direct current stimulation. Transcranial, so it's through the scalp, it's not invasive. Direct current, exactly to your point, this is electricity. What we're doing is we're sending a constant stream, and in the device specifically, this is two milliamps. And think of that as the equivalent of like a nine-volt battery or two AA batteries that you use to power your remote. It's that strength, and that's being passed through and it's stimulating, or we say sort of neuromodulation. And it what we're doing is we're targeting, and we can target depending on where the electrodes are, we can target different parts of the brain. Now, the technology itself has been around for decades. Um, the pivotal trial was around 2010. So this is not new technology, the form factor is new. The fact that it's at home, the fact that you can purchase this and use it and see the benefits from it means we've taken something which traditionally was in clinic, done by practitioners, and now can be done in a form factor which people can do at home. And we'll touch on the use cases. If we talk of halo specifically, we see benefits and quick benefits in focus, mood, and sleep. And that's because of the area of the brain that we're targeting, that's the prefrontal cortex. Now that we know that part is responsible for executive functioning. So mood regulation, well, emotional regulation more broadly, and executive function. So learning, all those things I mentioned, memory, and uh the link with sleep as well, of how we delay sleep or bring on sleep and controlling that as well. So that's what it's targeting, that's what our users can see benefits from, different walks of life. It can be used when people, the foot uh the technology at least, can be used even when people are unfortunately have a diagnosis. But Halo specifically is also for those who are already well and they want to try and get better or optimize aspects of those three domains.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, makes makes a lot of sense. And I guess let's start with probably a point of confusion for a lot of practitioners, a lot of people is certainly something that I needed to square away myself. This is not the same technology, correct, as EEG. So we're not, this is very different than changing brainwave states, right? So, you know, what I think when a lot of people think about these devices, they're like, oh, this is gonna put me into, you know, an alpha brainwave state or in train theta brainwave states or something like that. And this is not quite that, correct? And and what is uh the difference there, just so people can understand?
SPEAKER_01:Sure. So neuromodulation does cover, and I guess the the technologies or treatments that are most common are ECT, electroconvulsive therapy, TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and then this electrical stimulation, so transcranial direct current, and there is also alternating current. All of those forms are where energy is being transmitted in. Now that can be, and the strength of that varies. So if we just compare with TMS and ECT, both of those are actually causing firing. There is enough power and energy being given that the brain cells, the neurons themselves, are firing. And the rate of firing is determined by the frequency at which you set it. But it's causing it's every cell is then reaching action potential. So you have that many firings or action potentials per second. That's different to TDCS. What this is doing is giving it a bit of a nudge, it's encouraging it, it's almost sort of trying to wake it up and say you want to fire a bit more regularly. And it does that by changing the resting membrane potential. Therefore, it's easier to reach action potential there and fire more regularly. And therefore, it's not just at a time that you're providing or stimulating, but you see effects afterwards, and that builds up. And it's building up, I guess, that wiring circuit. It's firing more regularly. And when we what we know is that's how things optimize. EEG is measuring. So what this what none of these things uh those uh three things do is measure activity or brainwaves. EEG is measuring, so it's looking at the electrical activity that's already there and based on where the electrodes are placed, measuring and seeing what different currents and what different waves there they are. With this device, there's no measurement. We're not getting any feedback, we're not seeing what the theta waves are, the alpha waves, none of that is there. We're modulating when we measure afterwards. If we were to scan and do these uh EEG, FNARs, other forms of imaging to see afterwards, we would see the effects. But this technology doesn't directly measure that or change it directly either.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and if studies have been done to show that it has any effects on some of these, you know, let's call them brainwave states that are uh synonymous with, let's say, mindfulness, the alpha state, the theta state, or, you know, in certain situations, the gamma state. Is there any relationship between this technology and those brain wave states that people get interested in? And the reason why I'm asking, Coult are you can imagine people say, you know, I go on Spotify and I download, you know, the 528 Hertz or I download the gamma, the gamma brainwave hertz and things like that. Is this going to help with that kind of thing? And I know this is gonna come up because I see it a lot, and I'm I and I'm curious myself if we have any indication that this might be impacting in any way.
SPEAKER_01:So, yes, and uh yes, it does. Uh, we're measuring that now. We've started some studies. Again, we're very research focused. I really want to build on evidence so we collect as much information, even if it's subjective, and then we do trials to see what effects they're having as well. So we know that from even the earlier studies, not even with our device. We know that it does have effect. What we're also doing, and this is more of our experimental research now, is is using this the same thing to even predict. So, based on those profiles, based on the wave patterns, can we even predict if technology like this will work by just measuring those waves? And then obviously confirming that. So as we then stimulate, checking and seeing, was our prediction right? And just on that, for instance, if we look at low mood and we look at people uh in, say, even a depressed population, so that's not well, they have depression already, we can start predicting with a good degree of accuracy on whether or not they will even respond to technology uh to respond to this device. So we will look to build that type of infrastructure in that we can measure, users can measure, users can also then see, and as well as then getting the subjective measure, which which of course is massive, to be able to just feel the effects. You don't always need data to tell you. Sometimes data can then be uh you might feel well, and then you say you look at something and it tells you maybe not the case, and then that can have an effect as well. But I think there is a lot of power in understanding actually what effect it is having, measuring that. Long answer to say yes, it does, both in terms of effect, but also even in terms of predicting response to treatment stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Love that. So, you know, you're gonna be uh obviously doing the data to try to figure out exactly these responses. You know, like the use case I would have in mind is let's say we have someone who's, you know, very anxious, tends to get in high beta brainwave states. It sounds like what you're saying is okay, we are going to do some work to measure those, make sure they are in this high beta brainwave state, use this particular device, see if it can pull those people back into alpha states, see if we have a subjective relaxation or uh mindfulness component of shutting down ruminating thoughts and that kind of stuff. And also, I imagine seeing what happens over the long run. I know you all have done some really interesting studies with, you know, repeated use. Uh I was wondering about, you know, in terms of direct first-time stimulation and what it does, but it sounds like you're going to be looking at that as well. And I obviously I think people are interested in this uh idea of do I use this device? I have one sort of uh physiological state going on. I can see that in my brain waves. I can also perhaps see the qualitative aspects of it, you know, ruminating thoughts and hypervigilance and other things, and then use a device and see that those symptoms change, and then, you know, also see those brain waves change. So it sounds like what you're saying is we don't yet have that specific data, but you're certainly interested in uh doing that. And is that how you're kind of thinking about it?
SPEAKER_01:Exactly that. I think you know the current device doesn't have that feedback built in. We don't have EEG sensors. Again, as I said, this is just sending the current out. But exactly that, look, we really want to understand. We're still we know so little about the brain generally. There's a lot of measurements, I think, compared to other organs we have, which we have far more understanding on. We're still really at the beginning of the neurological space. This is why we see a lot more neurotech, we're seeing obviously invasive things as well. So we do want to understand partly because we don't also want to come up with something that doesn't work, you know, it might theoretically work, but we need to objectively measure and see that it is actually having the effects that it has. Now, on your point around single stimulation, we know there are effects happening when current is being delivered at the time. But I guess I'm interested in what are the longer-term effects. Now, we do have users who will say, after one stimulation, I felt something. And again, it's important to then separate out even the power of placebo. I'm not saying nothing is happening, but we want to see lasting effects with all of these things. If we're looking at mood optimization, if we want to get focus, memory, and so forth, and we want to get it, get that into a better state. We want these sustained. I don't see, say, with one stimulation, we will not see sustained efforts. And we're looking at what the protocol is, how we can optimize that, what other things that we can do, what other factors outside of even the stimulation can help have those effects. So, what other things influence neuroplasticity? Again, an area where we're trying to learn more. And we know that so many things affect it. So we look at gut brain access, other things, what's your sleep state, how many stimulants have you got on board at the time, like things like caffeine and so forth. So, are you primed in a primed position to even benefit? And if we get all that, maybe even with one stimulation we can see effects. So far, the evidence very much points to repeated use, and then that builds up because of that, because it's not causing the action potential at the time of stimulation happening.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And you know, that would make sense, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but it would make sense to me because the way I see this is it's exercising certain pathways. Like my first introduction to this particular technology was through athletics. And my understanding was, and I want you to correct me here because I could be talking about something else, but I believe I'm right on this, that this technology was used primarily for to help with deep practice, right? So let's imagine I'm this is the way I've always seen it. Let's imagine I'm an athlete and I'm going through something or I'm doing mental rehearsal of hitting a baseball or something like that, and I have this device on. This device is perhaps helping run those uh that neurology or those pathways. You know, the way I like to think about it is Hebb's law, that whole idea that neurons that fire together or wire together. So I'm seeing it as, you know, a practice type approach. And so if I'm getting this right, it would make sense to me that this is simply helping with deep practice. And I like this idea of deep practice, not just practice, but good quality practice, and this helping us practice more deeply. So I'm wondering, is this the way you're seeing this as well, or am I completely off? Because if it is, then that makes sense that obviously you're practicing, this is helping the practice, and slowly but surely we're gonna have a particular outcome, like being able to sleep better or focus better or calm ourselves or have better emotional regulation. But it's not gonna necessarily happen right away, but perhaps with this device, it's gonna happen much faster due to the way it helps the brain practice than it would if you were trying to do this on your own.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. And so actually, so the original device, if we look at Halo Sport, that was actually targeting motor, the motor cortex. And that's because of the original research. So I mentioned 2010, that's when the pivotal trial happened. That was that was focusing on the motor aspect, so that benefit after even the stimulation had ended. And so when that when that first device came out, it was saying that. So what do we do? So it was born that I guess it was born to solve the problem of motor learning. So we say, yeah, deep practice, exactly that. We found even with elite athletes, you reach a plateau. Uh, it was there with the Golden State Warriors as an example. So, and it wasn't necessarily that the limiting factor was muscle. You can prime the muscle, you can train the muscle, but maybe it was the brain's ability to learn that movement, optimize that movement so the muscle does exactly so it's efficiency, not just in terms of the muscle, but that connection of what I need to get done in order to do that. So, targeting the motor cortex in that way, priming it almost, that's where we found the benefits. And so, similarly, if we move areas, exactly the same thing. You mentioned, yeah, uh neurons that wired together and fired together, wired together, exactly that. So we can see that by priming it, particularly focus on specific tasks. Now, others use it then for deep work uh to take the deep analogy further. And exactly that, say what can you do activity-wise? Is it meditation? Is it something else? That you're you're training, you're priming or even preparing for the activity that you're going to do. So before you do it, you're going to have a stimulation. It makes it that much more efficient, and even then, sometimes doing that activity whilst you're stimulating. Obviously, that's not appropriate for all activities. Uh, wearing the headset, it's got to have a stable contact, so you wouldn't want to be running and moving around so it loses contact. But for some people, for instance, musicians, they might do it when they're rehearsing. We can do that before if they're going to do limited movements. Uh, exactly for that, for that very reason that we can do that whilst they're also stimulating. And it could be even a learning task. So reading through that literature, reading through that things whilst you're stimulating, to really just make sure that the part of the brain that needs to be switched on or switched on a little bit more can get that benefit whilst the device is in use.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, okay. And now you're gonna now you're getting people excited, Colt Darkoves. I think, and me as well, right? Because I know this isn't exactly the use case that you know Halo is using. Like I've seen and talked to Sam, who has educated me a little bit on this device, that it's having pretty amazing effects on sleep and focus and other things. Uh for me, for example, what I want to, you know, do is I'm someone who is, you know, um very much wanting to magnify my effects in meditation and mindfulness. And so it sounds like if I'm hearing what you're saying, perhaps wearing a device like this, as I am moving into, let's say, trying to enhance interoception or understand, you know, sort of the sensations in my body or trying to, you know, get to uh, you know, this sort of relaxed, uh, detached, you know, meditative state, that this would help me prime that neurology to perhaps get there uh faster over time, to be more efficient in my practice. And I guess the idea would be, you know, we're all looking for the cheat code, right? So if you said to me, you know what, Jade, I think based on this type of device, that a normal practice of 12 weeks of meditation, right, where you get those effects, that this might create, you know, shorten that duration down to nine weeks or six weeks or something like that. I think this starts to become very interesting for people. And this is how I have conceptualized it and understood it. But that's why I wanted to talk to you as well to kind of see you sent me straight and be like, well, Jade, not quite. You're not quite gonna get those kinds of effects. That's what I'm most, you know, sort of interested in. And I have questions around that, but first I want to see am I so far off with this, or is this what uh you think this could be, you know, a viable use case? And are you seeing people using it in these ways?
SPEAKER_01:So I think look, we need to understand the science a lot more. I think that a lot of this is based on even some of the use cases, if we speak to and have testimonials, if I have some of my own network and even some of my own patients who are using this and learning from them. We do, even within the app, we know we get these subjective scores. We're looking and seeing what improvements we make. And I'll touch on the data um shortly as well. But even if we look outside, and again, you look at the technology, if you see surgeons, for instance, doing uh repeated surgery, you can just prime, it was used in gamers, for instance, and you found that their response time has slightly increased. Now, for a general for somebody like me, you know, a 0.5, 0.2, 1% may not really mean much. Otherwise, you may not be able to notice it. When you take that and you go to the absolute sort of elite, if you look at a 1% difference, can be the difference in a gold and silver medal and so forth, then you can see what these cumulative effects are. Now, I think that's we're a little bit off in terms of the science today to say, look, is this a shortcut? Is it going to half the time? I would almost say it's probably a bit more like an amplifier. It's not a direct hack, it's not a shortcut. This is not to say, right, use this device and you can practice less less for the same for the same benefit. I'm I'm I don't think the science backs that up. However, I think it will say it's just a little bit more efficient. So, you know, you might be able to cut off, say, a minute of your practice time and uh to have the same benefit. But I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't even advocate for that. I'd say, look, keep your practice time the same. But if you do it whilst doing that, you primed yourself in the right way, then you get a slightly better effect. Now, when we look at the data, we find so um if I we used it in a population, for instance, who were also or on the waiting list for therapy, just as an example. So they're waiting to get therapy. Now they use this. We found two things. Sometimes they got better, so that they didn't even need therapy at all. They felt well in themselves, say, right, I actually don't need to engage with therapy. With others, they needed less sessions to reach the goal of what you would get. So less time. Now you can call that a shortcut. I think again, this is just we're getting, we're starting to prime, we're getting the brain, we're getting the body ready. It's that slight nudge it needs, just like it nudged to fire more regularly. It's giving that little impetus to say, I'm ready, I'm going to be engaged, I'm a bit more motivated to get involved, I'm going to put a little bit more into it. And that doesn't have to be necessarily conscious effort. It's there because things are already firing to get it ready to have that response.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Love it. All right. So let's let's get into some of the data then with the specific things that we can say about this specific device. Because I know you have done that and you've seen, you know, some positive outcomes. And so my understanding is, uh, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that sleep, I'd love to hear about what it's doing for people with sleep. You just mentioned, I think, you know, people with depression or dealing with, you know, sort of uh melancholy or low uh mood. Um what else can we say? What can we say about this specific device, the conditions that are um benefiting from it? And then after that, I would love to see you know what that takes, you know, in terms of treatment time. Sure.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So if we look at so I'll talk to Halo specifically, and then I'll talk about a little bit about flow neuroscience as well. That's uh a similar device, uh, but also uh from the pairing company as well. And so if we look at Halo, and the the data is from the real world usage. Now, what we did is within there we have these questionnaires. So people, in order to carry on stimulating, they will answer these questionnaires. Now, these aren't something that we made up. We did select them, but they're clinically validated, sort of internationally used scales to measure those three things. And the pillars were around focus, mood, and sleep. Because we get all that data, we then say, right, well, let's analyze and see what actually changes. How does it change? Does it change at all, or how much does it change? And the difference here is most studies in the space, again of TDCS, in fact, most studies that we do in research and in medicine and clinical space tends to be focused a bit more on disease states or when people are not well. So we were taking this out and saying, actually, no, this is for a well population. So assume baseline is already okay, but let's use these tools and these measures to see actually can we still get the incremental effects? Now, we've got our initial results from over 200 people and looked at the performance or the improvements by week four. And what we define here as an improvement is from your baseline, have you scored at least one uh point above? And then we measured that, we broke that down by each of those pillars. Now, in all of them, we saw more than 60% had improved. So of all those 203 users, we found and uh if I it was around 66, 65 percent in mood, it was just about 60, approaching 70 percent in sleep, and similarly in concentration. So really good fast benefits, you know, even by week four. And that was really encouraging, slightly surprising almost to me to see those effects that early. Uh with if we look at those who improved in all three domains, that was just hitting 60% again in that 200 user. So we saw an improvement in every one of those, at least one point across all three. And then we said, okay, well, what is it about it? Is this is there a particular type of profile? Is there a particular persona who benefits the most? And how is it linked with the treatment protocol? So if I just spend a quick moment on what the protocol is, every stimulation is 30 minutes long for the first three weeks, that's five times a week. So it's two and a half hours a week. You can only stimulate once a day. After that, you go down to between two, and actually, we've just changed uh that now to three times a week. So you move then to three times a week at that stage. Don't customize, but it's basically getting ready. It's a new thing, so we have a few more sessions at the beginning, and then it goes down after that. So by that stage, by week four, you've done that three-week stage, and and then you've moved down to that lower state, you then start to see what those benefits are, and they continue. So we've got more improvement coming up from week six data, and we're just about to get through week 10 data as well. And now, if I just very briefly then talk of the wider population, the evidence base, and then also I'll talk about the flow neuroscience device. So the FL100 one uh headset. Now, that is indicated not for a well population, that is specifically for those who suffer with depression. And say in the UK, where I uh practice as well, I use that in a depressed population as well. And in there, if we look at the research, again, very quick results. But it is a 10-week program, but then you can see people who get into remission by 10 weeks. So they they're in that disease state, they have got the unfortunate diagnosis, and then they improve. But we can start to see effects in our real-world data beginning again as early as three weeks, continuing to improve as time goes on, but that's the sort of speed of onset that we tend to find at a population level, users telling us of what the benefits are being found.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's pretty amazing. So, roughly about two-thirds of the people that you have seen this population of 200 that you studied are getting significant results in about four weeks. And you're saying, if I'm hearing you correctly, that that continues. Are we talking about in increased uh you know effects at weeks you know six, eight, ten, and and beyond? And uh do we know how long these last if people come off this device?
SPEAKER_01:So we that that's exactly the information that we're continuing to build. So look, we're quite early in the halo journey. We want to see what those effects are. So I what I can commit to is we're gonna continue doing this research, we're gonna continue, and we were getting this data, we're always going to analyze it. I actually, I mean, talk of analysis. I I got uh we went through some of the data uh yesterday. And what we found with that was for just breaking down the profile. Now, we in addition to these questionnaires that we do on a regular basis, we do have an onboarding questionnaire. That was just to learn a little bit more about the individual and again understand who it works for better at population level. Now, what we found was, and you mentioned meditation earlier, those people who have at least moderate activity level, so they've exercised basically and engage with meditation, they get better effects. So at a just a population level, if you're already pretty active and you already do some form of meditation, you are more likely to benefit or see see the benefits of Halo. And it sort of makes sense because it's again linked to plasticity. You mentioned earlier about uh the waves and EEG data and saying what activities tend to so this is this is why again I say that this is not this is not the shortcut. It's not that give up those other things, do this, and it will have those benefits. But saying what can work together, what unlocks, what is that synergy? How can we do things which complement each other, worked almost as an adjunct to say, can we see those benefits? It won't be for all, but these are the early trends that we're getting. Um, and the other thing is then about adherence. You said uh longer-term effects with any treatment, with any practice, you want to be consistent, you want to turn it into a habit. So if we look at the difference between if I call somebody a super user, i.e., they are 100% adherent, they follow the stimulation protocol exactly as it is in all stimulations, versus somebody who meets 70% adherence. We analyzed that data too. We found that the difference between the two was six percentage points. Now, again, that's pretty significant of the percentage of people who notice an improvement in one of those domains. So six extra percent of those uh of our population, if they were superusers, that's the benefit that they had. Again, which I think is testament to the to what we know. Intuitively, we know this. When you practice something, when you're more disciplined with it, you're going to see those effects. Exactly the same thing that we're seeing with Hale.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I like the way you put it. Now I'm understanding why you call it more of a booster than a shortcut. You know, and you know, if I'm hearing you correctly, it's like, okay, if you're doing things that we know create neuroplastic effects, exercise, meditation, other things, and you're doing this, right? And you're adhering to the actual protocol, we may be getting a significant boost, and you're looking to see uh that data. And you do bring up a really, a really good point, right? Because you and I both know, you know, being in medicine and being in lifestyle medicine, that's kind of the point. You could tell someone, here's the protocol, here's the thing to do, whether they do it or not is a big question. That's one of the reasons why I'm interested in uh this kind of work. Because what I have found in my work, and why I've moved more into, let's call it, mindset, you know, sort of medicine or identity type work, is because what I was finding is, you know, even if I'm giving someone a drug, they don't take it all the time. I give them a diet, they can't stay on that diet. I tell them to exercise, and that lasts for a very short period of time. To me, I'm like, what about the person's identity is driving those habits and behaviors? And so I am intrigued, and I know you and I can't say this at this time, but I love that someone like you is looking after this data, and I'm always intrigued at things that can uh help people boost the effects of what they're already doing, because we do know results, especially if you get them faster, tend to make people keep doing them, and also something that can stack on top of those behaviors. I guess a couple more questions before we end. How are people using this? So I I imagine, let's take that use case we talked about. Let's say we've got someone who's moderately inactive, they tend to stay inactive, they also meditate. You know, um, I'm assuming the way this protocol works is they're adding this on during the day. So I'm assuming they're not wearing it while they're meditating, although someone like me won might want to try that, but maybe, but maybe they are. So, you know, are you seeing people who are stacking these things on top of each other? Like I'm gonna, you know, basically, uh obviously you wouldn't want to work out with this because it's gotta maintain its contact, although maybe some people would, but you get what I'm getting at, right? Can we stack this on top of, or is this simply, you know what, Jade, sit down, put the device on, set your timer for 30 minutes or whatever, open up the app, do your thing, and then that's your practice. Or would you tell me, no, Jade, you could try to stack this with other behaviors. I'm just curious how people are using this, how you recommend using it.
SPEAKER_01:They're using it in both ways. At the moment, I can't give a I can't give a data-informed answer. What I will say is find out what works best for you. I know a number of people, I was speaking to somebody uh quite recently who says they will wear it when they're actually practicing their guitar, and they find it's just better and it just helps them. Others, in fact, even just earlier on today, I was speaking to somebody who said actually they just wear it just because it gives them that reset moment. They can just chill out, they're doing nothing else, and it actually gives them the time that they need to detach from everything, otherwise, they're on their laptop, they're answering emails, and it forces them, and therefore, it's almost that rest and recovery period by just using the headset. Now, others do meditate while they're doing it. We have uh a user who I spoke with who uses this in a soundbar, and then again, so you're you're almost using two different forms of treatment at the same time who find real benefit. What I'm hoping to do, what we are looking at right now, is understanding that more. Now we don't ask that right now, we don't say, What are you doing at the time of stimulating? But I think it would be really fascinating to say, well, actually, what difference does it make? Is there a particular particular activity that means you will get those better effects? And and vice versa, by stimulating, what type of activities show the most improvement as well? So, again, a real fascinating area to understand more with time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, this is, you know, when I was trying to unpack all of this, and you know, it's like going back to way back before this device, and then you know, you forget you're in other things, and then you come back to it. My my perception from reading some of the early research on this is that again, going back to that deep practice thing, that it was helping for people who were doing some kind of work, it was helping that practice be more. So that's where it makes sense to me. It it sounds like you're telling me, Jade, be a little more, be cautious about that story necessarily, but it also sounds like you might be hinting that it could work this way as well. We just don't know. Certainly, when we look at motor cortex stuff, my understanding is that's exactly what it was doing, right? Where they were essentially practicing something, you know, doing some kind of physical thing. To me, it makes sense then if I'm doing some kind of visualization work or breath work or, you know, let's call it a work-in meditation, that and I'm exercising those neural pathways uh by myself, and then I add this thing on, it's making sense to me, although I don't know that I'm correct in this, that it would uh essentially boost that neural activity, perhaps, or you know, help those uh, you know, uh neurology that I'm that is firing together, wire together more likely. And so should I be cautious in the way I'm framing that, or would you say, you know what, Jade, I think that's uh uh an okay way to look at it. You know, what what would you caution there? Do you think it's it's a way that we can be thinking about this or not?
SPEAKER_01:We can. I want to be able to back that up with evidence.
SPEAKER_00:Gotcha.
SPEAKER_01:But I I but I have heard enough. I I speak to lots and lots of users across Halo, across Flow. I have uh I have enough, and we get testimonials come through as well. I have enough of an inkling to say I'm almost certain. Again, I want to prove it. We want to be very much evidence-based and evidence-informed, and we want to build the evidence basis, not to look elsewhere and say, look, we've got a fantastic community, our users are really engaged, we want to continue learning from them. That said, I have an I've heard enough of uh enough use cases where exactly that they're doing something and they find benefit and it's helped with that particular activity. So I'm sure of it. I want to be able to prove it with data. I'm working towards that, my team's working towards that. I'd love to be able to come back and say, here it is, here's the data I can now show you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You know, first of all, I just want to say I so appreciate uh that way of looking at things because I think we're currently in a world where, you know, um we have the make it up effect. People just want to say, hey, if it worked for me, it should work for everybody, and we can get way ahead of ourselves. I I can tell you're a clinician, job number one is for us to do no harm. We want to understand who it's working for, how it's working. We want to lead from data. I so appreciate that. I so appreciate your work, Coulter, for real. Thank you for what you are doing and trying to bring these technologies to us. Uh, is there anything else you want to leave us with that you, you know, want to just make sure I'm aware of, the listeners are aware of in regards to this device or this technology.
SPEAKER_01:I think I'll reiterate. Look, uh, and to your point, this won't work for everybody. Uh nothing does. So uh, and and I'll say it again, just as you have, this is not a shortcut, but this is another tool. It's another thing that we can use. Hopefully, it will work. I think what I can say on behalf of everybody that we uh on the of on the team is that we are always going to work towards building that learning from users. And soon at any point, if we say we've learned enough, that's our time to say we need to we need to reevaluate what we're doing here for. This is all about the end users, this is all about the person. We want to learn more for them, we want to do more for them. I'm not interested in data because I want data, I'm interested in data so that users can benefit from what does it mean for you? What does it mean for you, Jade? What does it mean for everybody else who's listening? Can we have that benefit? Can we give you something that helps you? Similarly with patients. Does it change a particular lab function? Does it change your uh your your wave thresholds by so much? Interesting, but actually, has it had an impact on you? Has it had a functional impact on you? Has it impacted your lifestyle? Functional medicine lifestyle might is exactly about that. Are we having a benefit? Is it changing your well being? Is it changing your lifestyle for the better? If it is great, let's do more of it. If it's not, let's understand why and what we need to change so that we can take that to a positive.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I could tell you the clinicians who listen to the show are gonna very much appreciate that about you. So, Coultar Garcha, thank you so much. I appreciate your work. Thank you for who you are in the world. Thank you for being on the show. And just do me a favor, I'm gonna go ahead and hang up, but stay on the line so we can make sure this uploads. And for all of you, uh, thank you so much for being here, and we will see you at the next show.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you so much.