"You’re learning how to calibrate your body, you’re learning how to take control of your autonomic nervous system, but without the need of any type of medication or invasive procedure to do that."
Celine Tien
EFR 668: Using Virtual Reality to Treat Chronic Pain, Increase HRV, and Improve Mental Health with Celine Tien
Entrepreneur and advocate, Celine Tien, talks about the power of building a platform for people with chronic pain/illness and using VR and biofeedback to take back control of your nervous system.
Feeling just a little bit better each day can have a massive domino effect on your life. Celine’s greatest advice is to go out and find that thing that’s going to create that domino effect. It could be going on a daily walk, it could be cutting out caffeine, or it could be Flowly…
Celine Tien is the Founder and CEO of Flowly, a holistic brain-body program for retraining your autonomic nervous system. Flowly is NIH-backed and studied by UPMC and USC as an opioid-sparing pain management device. With Flowly, you can learn to shift your body from pain to flow state.
Follow Celine Tien @virtuallyceline
Learn more about Flowly
Follow Chase on Instagram @chase_chewning
Follow him on Twitter @chasechewning
Key Highlights
Do we need another piece of technology like Flowly to help our mental wellness? Who is Flowly for? Celine breaks down why VR is necessary for their target market: people with chronic pain and chronic illness. She shares how growing up around pancreatic cancer, an extremely painful, anxiety-inducing illness, became the inspiration behind Flowly.
Celine shines light on how she’s taking care of her mental health as an entrepreneur and founder of a start-up. She emphasizes the importance of leaning on your community and practicing receiving feedback and help.
What is biofeedback? Celine explains what it is and how it can help you learn to relax and shift your body into the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest mode). This can lead to better sleep, better recovery, and increased HRV (heart rate variability).
Celine highlights the science behind Flowly, the accessibility and inclusivity of this technology, and the results they’re seeing in patients, including a 50% reduction in opioid usage! She then shares her thoughts on the opioid epidemic and their mission for patients using opioids.
What is the Flowly user experience? Celine describes what it’s like to use Flowly and join the Flowly community. Chase also shares a bit about his experience using it.
What’s next for the future of VR? What are some other potential uses of Flowly? Tune in to hear Celine’s answers!
Powerful Quotes by Celine Tien
When you are in pain, it’s really hard to ask you to close your eyes and meditate and focus in on your body.
Both what we found in our own studies, but also in previous studies in this space, virtual reality creates a really immersive medium for people to focus in on their body, but by focusing on something outside of their body.
You’re learning how to calibrate your body, you’re learning how to take control of your autonomic nervous system, but without the need of any type of medication or invasive procedure to do that.
We really believe that health experiences shouldn’t be scary, they should actually be beautiful.
Recommended Resources:
Learn more about Flowly
Ever Forward Radio is brought to you by Legacy
73% of people know nothing about their own fertility. Are you one of them?
Sperm is half of the equation when it comes to having kids. But average sperm counts have dropped by over 50% in recent decades, and today, half of all infertility cases involve the male partner. Sperm testing gives you the tools you need to understand and optimize your fertility. Legacy lets you do it all from home.
Save 20% on the "For Today" at-home male fertility test kit with my sponsor using the code EVERFORWARD
This episode is also brought to you by Strong Coffee Company
Strong Coffee gives you a dose of caffeine to boost energy just like your regular cup of joe, but we don’t stop there.
Instant, Organic Coffee
Grass-Fed Collagen Protein
C8-C10 MCT Oil
L-theanine
Coconut Extract
Electrolytes + Minerals
Organic Neurofactor