Here Comes Bio-Frequency Tech

Impending deadlines? Struggling to focus? There’s a bio-frequency vibrating smart sticker for that. Before you reach for another shot of caffeine or a mind-altering substance, why not slap on a Focus sticker ($60 for a pack of 10) and let the 963 Hz “synergistic combination of supporting frequencies” (according to the blurb on the Body Vibes site) soothe your senses.

Before you scoff, look around. There are plenty of people with transdermal patches seeking treatment for a variety of issues, including nicotine dependence, pharma-delivery and hormonal fluctuations. In fact, according to academic research available via the National Institutes of Health site, people have been using the largest organ in the human body (by mass) since ancient times for health reasons to apply potions and salves.

Although Body Vibes stickers don’t deliver drugs through the skin, and the company is careful not to make any outrageous claims, sticking to groovy-alt.California-speak, there’s something a bit futuristic and reminiscent of Sense8’s limbic resonance about the whole concept of bio-frequency tech.

So, in the spirit of trying (pretty much) anything once, I went to meet the two co-founders, Madison De Clercq and Leslie Kritzer at Skin Worship,(their other health and wellness business), asked them a few questions and tested a (Focus) Body Vibes sticker for 72 hours.

Here’s what happened:

Firstly, when you said ‘Come and meet us at Skin Worship’, I expected a street front salon, but this is a behind-closed-doors muted lighting top flight laboratory.
[MdC] We’re geeks about skin care. [Laughs] This is the latest in “vibrational skin care”. We are proud to have created a clean, sustainable, foundational skin care line. Our pores are living filters and we have developed a range of products to the most exacting specifications.

[LK] And here’s your Focus sticker.

[Leslie helps me apply the sticker to my upper left arm — it’s a region near my heart, but not right next to it, to assess my sensitivity. It has an all-seeing eye on it — reminds me of a Spidey Band-Aid. I pull my t-shirt down to cover it as I’m a bit embarrassed.]

OK, tell me the inspiration behind the vibrating stickers.
[LK] I saw my husband, who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, transform when he was given BioEnergy patches by his naturopath doctor. I bugged the doctor until I got details of the supplier — AlphaBio Centrix — then stalked Richard Eaton, CEO — who is now our partner in Body Vibes — until he met with me and explained how they worked. We wanted to work with him on our Skin Worship liquid-based skin care range, at first. But then I tried the patches — I have had a lifelong issue with chronic anxiety — and they really helped, so we decided to create our own version, using their technology.

You’re both clinically trained and registered estheticians, right?
[LK] Yes, we are — and I also got an advanced education in Paramedical Esthetics at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Extension, because I wanted to further my knowledge of how the mind/body works to enrich our business. I took advanced chemistry, physics, got a deep product knowledge — was very nerdy, in fact.

Nerds are necessary beings.
[MdC] Right [Laughs]. My academic interest has always been in art and science. . When we came together to form Skin Worship, then start Body Vibes, we wanted to be grounded in the science to bring about real changes in the people we treat while creating a fun wearable and shareable design.

On your site it says that the bio-energy synthesis technology behind the stickers came from military research — do you have a reference for this, I can’t find it? Is it anything to do with the “cognitive” adaptable RF tech at DARPA or the “biosensing (including biosonar, electrosense, lateral-line sensing” research unit at the Office of Naval Research?
[LK] We wish we could say, but we can’t. They’re Richard’s contacts: private contractors who did work in infrasonic — low frequency sound — and ultrasonic — above human hearing — weaponry for Government entities.

OK. Enough said. There’s an emerging body of research on audio therapeutics: I covered Focus@Will, which draws on neuroscience, using the mathematical structure of music to deliver an increase in beta and theta brain waves to enable effective concentration. But that’s ambient, in the air, not attached to the body. What’s special about your stickers that makes the frequencies interact with the human subject?
[MdC] The sticker is an RF device — a radio frequency enabled 1″ disk made from a poly/Mylar blend material, which is infused with carbon and crystalline elements. These store and transfer frequency in the form of subharmonic signals.

Back up — technically, how do the frequencies get into the sticker’s layers?
[MdC] There’s a containment field which creates a vacuum that charges the particles on the disk when a frequency signature is typed in to program the disk. There’s a NASA research paper that describes the process of radio frequency traps here.

Hmmm, but how do Body Vibes stickers “broadcast specific frequencies” through the cells? It’s not a passive RFID tag — like on smart label tags to deter shoplifters — which are powered by the electromagnetic reader at the store’s exit.
[MdC] No, a bio-field is applied through sympathetic resonance.

In the same way two tuning forks will align harmonically?
[MdC] Exactly. The body’s nervous system of electrical impulses starts to mimic the frequency in the patch. The shift happens, in terms of feelings and behavior, when both get into the same rhythm.

So your body becomes a local area network, cells start their molecular oscillation to get into the same frequency as the sticker and that has health benefits? Just as, with Focus@Will, your brainwaves get into entrainment with the audio frequency?
[MdC] It’s a very similar principle.

But you haven’t got any scientific-based academic research to prove it?
[LK] Not at this time.

OK, we should point out that’s why you got mauled by geeks when a few lifestyle gurus started waxing lyrical about Body Vibes. Bet that wasn’t pleasant.
[MdC] It was awful.

[LK] The haters were mostly working in electronics, because they thought we were talking about closed circuits of energy, in the way they understand frequencies, and we’re not.

[MdC] It’s different. In that we’re all electrical beings — a radio frequency has an electromagnetic field which, when a human being interacts with it, causes the tissues to heat up.

Whether that statement caused my mirror neurons to fire, I’m not sure, but I have to say my upper arm, where the Body Vibes sticker is, just felt warm.
[LK] It’s working……….

[EEK?] Perhaps. So, final question, what’s next for Body Vibes?
[LK] We’re talking with several companies that are in the elite athletes wearables space. They’re interested in using Body Vibes’ technology inside fitness bands.

OK — I’m off to see how this Focus Body Vibes alters my concentration and energy levels. I’ll report back after 72 hours.

[3 days later]

I’m loath to admit this. But something did happen. I’m completely aware of the power of suggestion (Harvard Medical School acknowledges that placebos work). Also, the fact I was wearing a visual cue (in the form of the sticker) of potential shift taking place, could well have swayed my perception.

But here’s the thing: I get up very early (before sunrise) because, if you work on the West Coast, and need to communicate with people not only on the other coast, but in Europe, you kinda have to. Which means I’ll often write until noon and then take the afternoon off, clocking on again when Asia wakes up.

In recent years, if I’ve tried to work in the afternoon, I just don’t have the available brainpower and my bio-unit needs recharging, so I leave my desk.

However, with the strangely vibrating frequency which may, or may not, have drawn my own biochemical system into a more “focused state”, I found myself skipping the walk and cheap price early showings at the local cinema (the joys of freelance life), and continuing to work.

Again, whether it was catching sight of the all-seeing eye sticker on my upper left arm before I turned in for the night, who knows. But I have to say I had the trippiest dreams I’ve had for a while. Which, to be honest, freaked me out a bit.

The idea that a patch on my arm could be affecting my neuroendocrine system, or brain wave patterns, was both disturbing and, I’ll admit it, strangely thrilling.

So I took it off after 72 hours and gave away the rest of the pack.

However the concept (if we can take the science behind it at face value, which I’m still not sure I can) is rather fascinating. I did do due diligence. I went through the NASA research paper on containment fields which charge particles, grasped the concept of molecular oscillation, sympathetic resonance and was fascinated/appalled in equal measure by both the “cognitive” adaptable RF tech at DARPA and the “biosensing (including biosonar, electrosense, lateral-line sensing” research unit at the Office of Naval Research.

There are many wild and wacky things that come out of Los Angeles, which slowly become mainstreamed and commercial over time. A biofrequency sticker to focus your attention might seem normal one day. Who knows?

/ENDS