iMRS Prime Features

Although it’s an optional accessory, the Exagon Sense is one of the most important tools through which the iMRS Prime reaches its full potential. This optical measuring device clips onto your finger to measure your Heart Rate Variability (HRV, the fluctuating time interval between each pair of heartbeats) and your Blood Oxygenation Saturation (SpO2).

The device turns the whole iMRS Prime system into a bio-feedback loop. The same was true of the iMORE device with the old iMRS system, but the Sense device and system on the iMRS Prime is far more advanced.

The Sense updates its readings constantly, displaying on screen as a continuous graph, and stores them for up to a year. The data can then be analysed by state-of-the art software from Finnish company Kubios, the global leader in medical HRV analysis (used in over 800 scientific studies). This offers a powerful way to assess the user’s health over time, their response to the iMRS Prime settings and to anything else the user might be using.

It now becomes possible to fine-tune the PEMF field according to the user’s changing needs. A young athlete will have a totally different response from a sedentary elderly person, and yet both will go through periods when their body is responding well or badly to other factors that have nothing to do with their age or fitness levels. The Exagon Sense provides a unique way of ensuring a tailor-made fit, whatever happens in the user’s life.

HRV is considered the gold standard in assessing a person’s stress level, and, crucially, how their body responds to it. It is used by several major corporations as a way of reducing stress and reactivity in their employees. Heartmath Inc and the Heartmath Institute  have been particularly famous for this.

It is also a way of measuring and improving the functioning of the Autonomic Nervous System, which has major implications for overall health and longevity.

Standard HRV systems measure your heart rate variability as either a simple indicator of overall health, or to give feedback on your body’s response to, for example, meditation or breathing exercises, which are valuable in their own right. But they only have an immediate effect for as long as you watch the screen and for instance meditate or focus on your breathing — you have to put in the effort to make them work.

In the case of the Exagon Sense, the entire process is effortless and automated, with the PEMF field from the mat, and your own heart rate variability, acting as opposite ends of a continuous, inter-active loop with the aim of steadily improving several aspects of overall health.

This means dynamically altering PEMF field strengths, using changes in HRV. When the system registers any stress, the field is reduced, and as soon as that settles down, the field is raised again (the field at low levels is relaxing, but as it gets stronger, becomes energising).

The result is a tuning-up of your autonomic nervous system (ANS) during every session. The ANS is the part of your nervous system that automatically regulates your heart, digestive system, glands (including hormones) and other involuntary body functions.

It is your body’s first response to physical or psychological stimuli, and it operates in two states: the Sympathetic Nervous System (responsible for the Fight or Flight survival response) and the Parasympathetic System (healing and regeneration).

When the response becomes degraded, the body stays in near-constant Sympathetic states due to constant stress. This is true of vast numbers of people in modern society, and it results in the body being less able to recover from disease and injury.

The good news is that if, over time (this not a quick fix), your HRV function is steadily improved, then your body is moved towards its highest potential for adaptability to stress, affecting its ability to repair itself and re-establish health and wellness.

To learn more about the benefits from improving your Heart Rate Variability, here’s our in-depth HRV focus, part 3 of the iMRS Prime Review series.

The Exagon Sense has a further function: it measures the amount of oxygen in your blood. The light wave from the device detects variations in the blood’s colour, which indicate the degree of oxygenation saturation.

A normal reading is from 95 to 100% (of oxygenated vs un-oxygenated haemoglobin). Below that range is a state called hypoxemia, usually caused by breathing problems, cardiovascular problems or anemia. The main reason for concern is that when this turns into hypoxia, a state of low oxygen levels in the tissues, it can cause serious cell damage.

So the fact that PEMF improves circulation (partly through increased nitric oxide levels and greater mobility in red blood cells) and improves oxygen uptake and donation through the lungs and cell membranes (partly through changes in the haemoglobin molecule) is good news. Especially when blood oxygen levels can rise by 2-3 percentage points during an iMRS Prime session! And the Exagon Sense lets you see the extent of that impact throughout each session, which might also help you decide how often you should be using the mat.

Even if only looked at in terms of circulatory effects, the Exagon Sense offers major improvement on top of the existing benefits of PEMF for lower blood viscosity and better ogygen tissue perfusion. But it goes far beyond this in that the Autonomic Nervous System controls so many other body systems and our overall response to stress. Even many therapists don’t understand the implications of continuous-loop bio-feedback, but they should!

To learn more about the potential benefits, here’s our in-depth Bio-Feedback focus, part 2 of the iMRS Prime Review series.