What would you give to kick your bad habits? Smoke, eat mindlessly, pick your nose? Believe it or not, there’s a wearable for that.
(Source: simplus.com)
When we first heard about Pavlok, it screamed BodyHacks in the most shocking way.
For $200 dollars, more than most even your high-end fitness trackers, you can don a wearable designed to shock you when you exercise bad habits.
Sound crazy? Maybe, but people struggle to break habits.
Form factor aside, if there were a tool they could use to kick them, most people would pay anything.
How it works
(Source: youtube.com)
You don’t have to receive a shock if you prefer not to. The Pavlok device will also use vibration, tones, and taps to course-correct your behavior. Of course, first, you have to order the device.
If you act now, it’s on sale for $149. You’ll also need to download the companion app, choosing the habit you want to break. Pavlok will use your GPS coordinates, your friends, and sensors to help keep you on track.
For habits it cannot detect, there is the option to activate your device manually.
Yep. That’s right. You push the button to shock yourself.
Just remember, you paid for this. Don’t waste your money now.
The science
(Source: youtube.com)
To be clear, there is no FDA or medical device badge on this device. The technology isn’t anything new, outside the fact that it’s a wristband.
Medicine has been applying shock therapy to patients for years, sometimes perniciously, sometimes with good results. If you believe what the Pavlok site says, you don’t need no stinking science.
They have the case studies to back up their product. Tasha quit eating sugar, Nagina quit biting her nails and Marty quit smoking.
If that doesn’t settle your concerns, Pavlok comes with a 6-month money back guarantee.
When you realize that all the shocking and beeping isn’t killing your urge to pass gas in public, you can get your money back. (Maybe you should stick it out a little longer, for the rest of us.)
Even the rabbits inhibit their habits when carrots are green
(Source: slayerment.com)
I have no idea what that means. Perhaps it means we all get to a point where we run out of options, where we need help.
Hacking your brain to change your habits is easy enough to summarize, but far more difficult to execute. It’s just easier to keep doing what we always do. That’s how we’re designed.
You can, however, make new habits. People do it all the time.
Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit, outlines just how we build habits. He proposes ideas on how we can break those habits.
The Pavlok fits well into this paradigm, presuming you use it as expected.
Imaginably, it could be just as hard to remember to shock yourself as it is to stop whatever it is you’re trying to stop doing. (I’m looking at you, Doctor Gas.)
(Source: youtube.com)
At the end of the day, there’s something to be said for breaking away from the things we just… can’t… stahp… doing.
Nobody can drive us crazier than we drive ourselves, so it stands to reason the only person who can help us is the one in the mirror. Yup, we’re gonna do stupid things we can’t stand. We’ll even do ‘em, over and over, until they start to hurt us (or others?).
There is something empowering in calling ourselves out. You don’t have to tell me about my bad habit. I’ll tell myself. I’ll stop me.
First I have to press this button to shock my wrist.