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Journalism of Courage
Even ace shooter and Olympic gold medalist Abhinav Bindra, who has trained himself to still the mind and probably can control it much better than any of us, had a momentary lapse once. “During the Olympics in Athens, a wobbly floor disturbed my mind to such an extent that it threw me off my game. I was supposed to win that day, but my mind betrayed me. Victories are not just about skill, it’s also about victory over mind. During my winning moments, whenever I held the rifle, I found a sense of stillness and tranquility that made me hit the mark again and again,” he says.
Athens bothered Bindra so much that he decided to work on better mind control methods and wondered if there was a way he could track his mental well-being every day. Meanwhile, Chief National Badminton Coach Pullela Gopichand, who is credited with churning out world champions from his academy and who grooms his pupils to win the game of nerves first, was thinking of a similar tracker. And in 2020, they got together and partnered to develop a wearable tool called the “Dhyana ring” to track mental alertness of athletes.
So, what does this device do? This ultra-light unibody aluminium ring, which is designed to be worn continuously, can monitor heart rate variability (HRV) and, combined with proprietary algorithms, becomes versatile for a number of wellness applications. For example, it can track activity and sleep patterns and most importantly mindfulness. It measures calories, blood oxygen (SpO2), and metabolic activity, which is of critical importance for dieting and weight loss programmes.
Overall, it allows the user to track different elements of their well-being and can notify users of oncoming stress by continuously tracking their inner balance. “A patented feature of the new ring is that it will notify the user whenever their stress levels are increasing. Imagine heading for a meeting and getting a notification that says your stress levels are high. You can pause for the signature two meditations inside the app that is designed to get your stress levels back to normal. You can then go for the meeting with confidence and poise,” says Bindra.
“When I was training to be a shooter, I wish I had a Dhyana ring,” says Bindra, who has taken part in the product development and has contributed his expertise to maintaining inner balance, testing it at various stages. “The fact that it can instantly show me how my mind is being disturbed is just amazing.”
“If you can measure if your mind is focussed, that’s invaluable to any player. Focus is what separates silver from gold and the more we train ourselves to be comfortable in this state, the better we perform. What if our mind was more aligned and centered? We would stay on course and not jeopardize our chances. Dhyana is unique in that way, it’s not another meditation app. It’s a piece of intelligent hardware that taps into your state of mind, measures your heart rate variability, and tells you how you are doing, right now,” says Bindra.
By continuously analyzing your heart rate variability (HRV), your sympathovagal balance (which is the balance your nervous system maintains between lethargic relaxation and anxious stress), Dhyana can discreetly notice changes in the shift in this balance and notify you when it detects signs of stress.
“When students, or anyone, is undergoing stress, the initial bit is important, as it helps us wane away from procrastination and move towards execution. However, stress in large doses begins to deplete away our physical and mental resources, and we often cannot recognize the moment when the same thing that was making us work harder, starts to work against us. The ring senses you, tells you when stress is getting unbearable and your mind is sustaining the state for too long, and then recommends you take a break, a meditation or even a walk,” adds Bindra.
The first version of the Dhyana ring was used extensively by both the Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad and the Neuromeditation Institute in Oregon, USA to assess the effects HRV has on people’s mental states at different intervals, such as pre and post-workout, pre-meeting and so on.
The Dhyana ring is now the official meditation partner of the Indian Olympic Association. for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
