Coffey & Code Podcast Interview with Sandeep Prakash, PhD.

9:49PM Nov 24, 2023

Speakers:

Ashley Coffey

Keywords:

sound

experience

ketamine

virtual reality

study

psychedelic

sense

work

technology

tone

research

mental health

therapeutic

body

headset

depression

reduce

type

put

creating

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Coffee and code. I am so excited to have a very special guest with me today. Dr. Sandeep Prakash, who is the Chief Scientist officer at sound self. I've been a huge fan of sound cell for years. Sound self is a revolutionary and vocal biofeedback technology for advancing mental health. And as you know, I'm a huge mental health advocate, and huge technology advocate. So I'm so excited to welcome Dr. Sandeep Prakash to the show. Welcome.

Hi, Ashley, good to be here.

Thank you for taking time to share your expertise and share a little bit more about sound self to the audience. That before we dive in, can you share a little bit more about you? How did you find yourself in this chief scientist Officer role? Sure,

I'm a psychologist by training. I became interested in psychology through music, you can see some instruments behind me here, I'm a musician. And I was in India studying music. Yoga, I had actually gone to India for mental health, I was feeling the need to deepen into a crisis of meaning of sorts that I was facing. And so I was traveling India, studying music, studying yoga, and studying from local practitioners of trance, as a spiritual practice that the bowels of Bengal and I, after that whole experience, I decided to switch careers after being an economist before that, and do my master's, a PhD in Psychology at California Institute of integral studies, which specializes in the study of psychedelics, and among other things. And as I was wrapping up my doctoral work, I met Robin Arnott, who started Andromeda entertainment a publishing company. And as part of Andromeda entertainment, he was incubating an invention of his called Sound self. And I was in Austin, where he lives and we somehow met, I can't remember now went to his house, and I tried it out. And I was blown away, I had never experienced technology like that, that could very rapidly change my state. My, the way I felt in my body, the my expansion of consciousness that happened during and afterwards. So I told him, I want to research this. And so I did a research study using that virtual reality, initial version of it. And we had some really good results in the study. And we got together after that study to launch a new company focusing on digital therapeutics. And for listeners who may not be familiar with the term, digital Therapeutics is a broad term that encompasses technologies and software and medical devices and wellness products that incorporate technology, or use technology to improve people's lives in some way in their, their health, their physical health and mental health. So, and we're taking, and so yeah, that's how we got together and started the company. And here we are today. Wow,

that is an incredible journey that you've gone through. Let's just take a take a step back here of your background, as an economist, studying musician, creative thinker, there's so many intersectionalities here, that you're mentioning that I see the natural journey of like where you got there. And I appreciate you sharing that, because I think some people also have those moments of trying to find that meaning of them and some people go to meditation for that people go to find different hobbies. So I'm glad that you use the intent to find yourself in a place of where you are currently.

Yeah, and, and it's part of our story of sound self and why I think it's really important. You know, when I was I had, I was really privileged to be able to take time to do that to go and study yoga. And I know many people aren't it's a it's a, it takes an investment of energy and dedication to learn yoga techniques that help regulate the body and help you explore consciousness. But what we can do with technology, especially, newer platforms, such as virtual reality XR, immersive technologies, is really speed up that process of learning of embodied techniques. So we can with sound self, we've, we've seen in our research that we can people can learn mindfulness much faster than a didactic sort of mindfulness training. One, because we're not doing it directly. We're doing it indirectly. It's not like you Do this is one, step one, step two, step three, we're giving a fun, really engaging experience where you're using your voice, so I'll just maybe explain what it is. So imagine you put on a headset. And first of all in virtual reality, and now we're using another type of immersive technology that uses light therapy uses LEDs on closed eyes. So your eyes are closed, this experience interesting. So yeah, so you put on this headset. I don't know, I thought I had it right here. But you lie down. Yeah. And a comfortable position. Perhaps on a vibro acoustic map. We have packages that also hook up to vibro acoustics. So you're lying on this fiber acoustic map. And a voice comes in and guide you into it, bring your awareness into your body into relaxing into noticing your breath, and then guide you into starting to tone.

And when you tone, the system is intelligently responding to your voice. And it's generating led, flickering, so it's strobing at certain rates. And it's generating a musical system as well. A musical experience all fueled by your voice. And so they expire after the guidance, it's essentially the system and the user for a given amount of time. Typically, a session is 30 minutes or 45 minutes and our current versions. And so as the user is toning, the system is generating this world and the user goes on this journey. Where incorporates greater greater relaxation and greater and greater level of feeling and access of interoception is just a way that we feel inside our bodies. While simultaneously this sort of out of body experience where it's sort of like a journey through the psychedelic type world that is generated, but partly by the by the system, partly by you. And so with the result is increased mindfulness, increased capacity to feel into the body and under, explore what might be emerging. So this is really useful for mental health situations where in many conditions, there can be like a ruminative cycle where you're stuck in that sort of like rumination. And you know, it's hard to get out of that that loop. But soundsoap is really, really good at that and breaking that loop and taking into another type of trance that is more beneficial for expansiveness, or spaciousness for being with yourself in a positive way, in a way that's welcoming things that are emerging in your in your in your field. And, yeah,

I thank you for sharing that, because I wanted to share with the audience here. So previously, you'd put the headset on and you would tone and these type of feedback of that tone would be represented through beautiful colorful visualizations that have geometric shapes that sometimes mimics some of the psychedelic experiences that your mind might create, without the use of, of any kind of drugs or medicine, or you name it. But now you're saying it's a similar process, but you're taking the colorful visual element out of it. And instead replacing it with LED lights on a headset, and potentially some vibrational haptics that are attached to like a map that you're laying on. But I'm going to ask you, because I've done EMDR before, like I have diagnosed depression and PTSD, and I've used EMDR. For trauma, like trying to work through traumas, and I understand how that works of tones and lights. I'm curious, is there any overlap and the study of what you're doing with that kind of technique?

It's related in the sense that we're, it's related in the sense that it provides a pathway so to speak, to get out of a predominantly cognitive realm and more into an embodied space. So we know from study done by mindfulness researcher, Taran Dr. Turan, who works he works with biofeedback but he did a study using EEG on sound self with people who are doing sound self and and we saw that there's reduced functional connectivity and the default mode have network. So there's, with the sound self experience sort of dampens that that mental chatter, which gives me a sense of relief

to so many people.

Yeah, definitely. And so while it's simultaneously dampening mental chatter is producing a sense of cognitive flow and playfulness. So it's not so you could reduce chatter, let's say, as you're going to sleep, you can, you know, the mind is less and less chatter and you fall asleep. But if we can create a state where you're there's less and less chatter, there's more and more relaxation, but you sustain a level of alertness and awareness. So that's a special sweet spot there. And don't fall asleep, then it's you, there's a, we can engender a state of neuroplasticity. And a place where you can face maybe uncomfortable phenomena or feelings and sensations from a place of safety. So there is this sort of regulatory setting up similar to EMDR. There's this sort of regular regular nervous system regulation effect.

That makes sense. Thank you for describing that. And, one, I want to just commend all of you at sound cell for the work that you're doing, because I believe truly that you all are pioneering the way for model behavior of collaboration, you're really intertwining, it's not the technology that's doing something for you, it is where you're meeting halfway. And that type of collaboration, where you're letting the person the patient, direct their journey can be so powerful. In many ways, I'm sure you've seen that in your studies and in your patients as well.

Definitely, yeah, that's one of our prime, I think values as a company is, in, in everything from our design to how we run our company is that it's very participatory. We central to our design processes. This is the user themselves and, and how can we empower a person to step into their mental health journey, increase capacity, and just better be better off. And it's interesting to think about technology like that, I think, with virtual reality, there was there still, there's still a lot of promise, I think we get sidetracked by just thinking about the hardware. But it's really the software and the artists who, with any media technology, take it really take full advantage of it and push the boundaries. Like we see this as any new media technology comes and is introduced, or is invented, you know, we when, before we had moving pictures, for example, that we were used to, like a photograph. And when we had movies, we the first movies were, we're still using techniques of production and understanding the viewer in this passive way. And it was only later on that we had that artists took full advantage of that medium. And with virtual reality. It's, you know, it's been around for what, 30 years now in some form. But we're only now seeing consumer applications and and, and medical applications and industrial applications that are really pushing the boundaries of what the what the medium affords, in terms of interactivity, in terms of like, changing the sense of a body meant, and it can do some pretty radical things, but it's up to the software, to the software artists to do that. So, yeah, people feel feel very much empowered. We're using it within some mental health context right now. Where our customers are mostly ketamine clinicians. Yes,

I would love to talk to her about her. Because that's finally like, for example, in Oklahoma, we do have ketamine therapy for people who are going through PTSD, deep levels of depression, or like veterans, of course, so it's becoming a more widely acceptable treatment. And I'm glad to hear that you're using some salt in collaboration with that. So can you talk a little bit more about that?

Yeah, definitely. Well, the obvious pairing is that you know, sound soft is in nondrug psychedelic you know, initially, we were very careful about that term psychedelic when applying it to it Knology but after seeing so many reports from people who had done sound self calling a psychedelic experience, and you know, when we think of the word psychedelic as like mind manifesting, or spirit or soul manifesting, that's before taking the site or after taking the psychedelic, there's this increased spaciousness around the sense of self and other or sense of the mythological space in which I exist. And sound self also does that. And there's definitely definitely differences between sound stuff and taking a psychedelic compound, for example, like the risk profile is much less with taking with sound soft compared to a psychedelic compound. Because it's shortened duration, you can stop the experience at anytime. And it's not something that you ingest. But because of that, and because of the powerful potential of ketamine and psychedelics like MDMA, psilocybin, LSD DMT. It's there's potential now to pair a technology, a digital therapeutic, and the preparation stages and the integration stages. Because what we we know with psychedelics is that in order to maximize their therapeutic potential, and reduce the probability of an adverse event, especially with mental health conditions, like depression or substance use disorder, we need a supportive paradigm that includes that go through a protocol preparation, the dosing session, and integration and a community of support there. So there's no one single answer, but sound self plays important role in this process, especially within the ketamine context right now. Where a person comes in for two or three sessions before taking ketamine gets acquainted with an altered state experience, you're familiar with just coming into the clinic and interfacing with the clinicians and talking to them. So when they do take ketamine, they have virtually no anxiety than they would have if they had never done sounds up before. That's the preparation sounds really fair. Yeah, to it reduces just anxiety going into a psychedelic experience dramatically. And it also prepares them in some, some embodied skills of mindfulness, attention and absorption. And those two things if we can improve that with if a person improves their mindfulness, their weight absorption or their ability to be in a sustained flow state, and their capacity for attention. We know that that improves outcomes of psychedelic therapy. So yeah, and then on the integration side, it allows them to really anchor into an insight they had during the ketamine experience. Wow. So you know, yeah, yeah. So we know that after ketamine after any psychedelic, there is the benefit, when there is no a lot of questions on how long those benefits of mental health benefits are sustained. So for example, with depression, if, let's say we, if someone has severe depression, and the level of depression, after after a ketamine dosing is reduced, how does it start to creep back up to the levels of depression start to increase? And what we're excited we're about to study right now in a research study is the sounds of increase the durability of the effect of ketamine? Does it make the effect of reducing depression, more durable, in the sense that it lasts longer, but if you do bounce off session, periodically, subsequent to the ketamine journey? And so we're developing protocols around that one

thing that I've been thinking about this lately, so I'm so glad that you're actually tying science to that and actual study.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's a it's an important thing for people to have that ongoing support with clinicians, but also a tool like sound self that can wear. So the specific like, let's say, therapeutic mechanism of action involves coaching a person to work with that insight after let's say they have some insights after ketamine. They can journal about it and use a variety of other methods like Artspace methods, psychotherapy with a therapist, a variety of things, but as their work with those insights, it's important to keep it alive. And so as a living force within their psyche, not just something that happened, and now they're, they can just throw out the car, you know, it's they got to keep riding with it somehow. And sound self allows you to go back into an altered state of consciousness very quickly, safely and easily. And in with the intention of reconnecting with that insight. So it could be a sense of like, infinite love, which, or it could be something like a particular type of intention I want in my relationship with the family members like that. So I will go back into town. So with that intention, and in this sense of spaciousness, and, and sort of like, creative destabilizing of the ego, which sounds off does, I can tap back into that insight and see how it's how it can live further in my psyche and in my actions in the world.

Wow. So because that a key word there destabilization of ego, I think we all need to experience that at some point in our lives.

Yeah, well, yeah. And soundsoap does that in a very gentle way. Or a psychedelic, it can be overwhelming, and there's very some risks. With that happening suddenly, and being you know, not prepared for it. And

so that's why people have the quote, unquote, bad trip, if you're, if your psyche isn't ready for it, and you're resisting, you're not going to have a good experience. But I want to kind of circle back around to the administration of ketamine here and kind of emphasize a couple of things. One, ketamine traditionally isn't going to be covered by your insurance. So one thing to emphasize here is, I feel like if the study proves to be successful, that you will see that a patient could have more durable and longer outcomes of the benefits of that therapy without having to go get it administered every time, I believe it's only available in like a nasal spray or an IV injection. And I believe health insurance covers one or the other. So I think there's a huge potential there for sound self to be the solution to help people that may not have the capital to get continuous ketamine therapy over the course of a year, but they can do it for three months, and they can sustain that outcome for longer durations, instead of having to go back. So glad to hear that you're studying that.

Yeah, exactly. That's, that's our goal there is to perhaps reduce the amount of ketamine that a person would need over time. And sort of that reliance on it and more of an empowering of the person in mental health skills and coping skills, and in ways of exploring their psyche that sustains that benefit over time and successful.

Yeah, yes. And personally, like I've had huge benefit from sound small, when the rubber used to be a tethered headset experience from myself going through an episode of depression and having the stability of something else guiding my journey. And then being able to anchor into that, do you focus, right, you're focusing on something else other than the rumination of your thoughts, you're getting that reactivity. So it's a little bit of validation of I think I'm doing something right. There's something visually reacting to how I'm, you know, participating in this experience, so it must be working. And then the feeling of I don't know, accomplishment, once you're done with the experience of like, I worked on something, I did something with my mind, and allows extra time for you to reflect on that. So I wanted to hear like a little bit more about, like, for example, right now, do you have to administer some cells in a office environment? Or can a user administer this in the comfort of their own home?

Right now, it's available in clinics and mental health centers and wellness centers. And it's, we found that it's really valuable for a person to have guidance before going before and after. And we're working on ways that, you know, perhaps in the future will can be accessible to shape a person's home. We're working on a number of clinical studies, and we're tracking towards proving out some mental health benefits and making sure that there's science and research can back that, that we can take the FDA make claims. So, one subset of digital Therapeutics is are those that have enough clinical rigor, that the FDA clears or approves in some manner. So that it can we can make marketing claims. I mean, you might see many The many companies making claims These days even if they're not FDA approved. But if you're going to make claims about mental health disorder, and if you're anything to do with it, you got you have to really do the science and go through the FDA process. And that's what we're, that's what we're doing. So what we're hoping is, in the next couple of years, we can a doctor will be able to prescribe a sound self as a digital therapy, and it can be shipped straight to your house and and it can be covered by insurance as well.

Wow, that's huge. I'm curious, though, who is doing the the facilitation is at the doctor? Is there an intermediary person that's facilitating? Okay, doctor, yeah,

it's either either a doctor or a nurse or a part of that part of the staff of the clinic. And they're setting a person up there guiding them on what they experiences, they tell them all the they tell them all about it, they tell on a screen them for any precautions. So for example, the contraindication of people who are at risk for seizures, because of the intensity of the strobing lights. So they go through that process, they coach the person on vocal toning, and then there, then we also give a lot of training to our customers on on all this type of stuff, but and then after the experience, they they bring the person out of it, and coach them on how they can make best use of that experience as they go about their life. So, you know, typically, like I said, sessions, 30 minutes or 45 minutes. And yeah, and so we're seeing lots of lots of success right now within ketamine therapy. And, yeah,

good, good. I'm glad to hear that. And I, you mentioned earlier, when we were talking about the collaborative nature between the technology and the person, and wanting to share with the audience like that is 100% true. Because whenever I first started using sound cells, I was able, that was my first discord channel was joining the sound self and talking to the developers. And I thought that was so cool that like I, as a user could talk to the people that were actually designing it, and they were actually listening and asking questions. Never in the world have I ever experienced that with a developer have like a VR experience. So people that are listening, y'all are legit, you'll talk the talk and walk the walk. So thank you for doing that and creating a safe and inclusive environment for people to feel comfortable going through that experience, because it can be a very vulnerable experience.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And that's, and then that is another reason why we're starting our entry into the market and clinical settings and places where you can get some guidance before and after. Because it, it is a vulnerable experience using your voice. We know it's a voice is very personal to us. When they're counting like that, like, Ah, you're hearing your own voice in the musical system. But you're also and it's modified slightly and different ways. But you're also hearing the musical system that your tone of your voice is generating. And we we do a lot of work in the guided meditation that comes before the toning, to get the person to relax and feel comfortable. And we start with humming before we even open them out. So like starting the process, just gently step by step getting to working away to just a full relaxed tone. And Tony has been used for millennia to regulate the body bond with others reach other alternate states of consciousness. And we just don't We don't do that typically in our, in our modern world. But there's there's a powerful, powerful outcomes to that practice of toning. So what we've done with sound self is packaged in such a way so that it's really accessible. People feel like that they feel safe going into the experience and doing it and and it's precisely in its vulnerability that there's the therapeutic lot of the therapeutic benefits. So there's a type of release that happens as I'm Tony like this repeatedly. It allows your my body to relax and and sort of like that emotional release to happen if if that's what needs to happen at that point. And that can be very, very healing for

people. 100% And it's pretty profound to see that happen. I'm sure as a physician and being able to observe that type of behavior. But I'm loving the fact that you'll identify the preparation and the integration stages. Because I think other fields have been using some similar approaches. For example, patients that are about to go through rounds of chemotherapy will go through a preparation stage of like what to expect in your preparation your as you prepare for chemotherapy, here's what you might feel, here's what you might experience during and afterward. So that makes people feel a little bit more comfortable going into it. I've also seen some dental offices use it as well, for people that have high anxiety around going to the dentist, and helping to reduce pain for dentist work. And I've seen some studies of your being used to help burn victims disassociate with their pain and associate with the visual element and the headset that might be depicting a cold environment or something icy. So I love the application of the integration or the the the preparation and integration because I feel like other fields could also take note of that as well.

Yeah, you know, immersive technology has this, there's really pretty crazy things we can do. And that, that we are continuing to see can refine, and figure out what mental health conditions can most benefit. So for example, with sound so and with so with virtual reality, in general, there's been research on what what people have called the out of body experience, to make a virtual reality kind of changes the sense of presence, you might be able to be present in another world, then like your everyday waking world. And by engineering, the conditions of that world and how the human body outside the headset is, is and how they how the person is interacting, and what their subjective experiences in this other world, we can, there's this sort of meeting place between the human and the system, and creating this out of body effect. And so there's been research on virtual reality, creating an out of body effect to modify a sense of someone's sense of self and body. So with people with body dysmorphia, or with anorexia, there has been research, I think out of Italy, with the Virtual Reality Project, they're showing that they can help people by changing beneficially changing how they their sense of their body. By doing this out of body experience, and you can also shift attitudes and perceptions, there's work with Mel Slater in Spain, that he did work on changing racial bias by by going into a virtual reality headset in a virtual world and changing the body that I'm in. So they put I think it was white, female, black female body, and be going through scenario. There was another one, I think out of the same lab, were putting sex offenders, or I think it was no, it was a domestic violence, violence offenders and put them in a situation where they were in a woman's body where a man was like threateningly, attacking them, wow. And getting them to change their these ingrained, habitual beliefs over time. So there's some pretty crazy powerful things that we can do. So but sound self, it's, it's, in our literature, several of our participants, in our research, have described it as this kind of kind of out of body experience. So it's like, both out of the body and in the body at the same time. And that's where a lot of therapeutic potential mechanisms that we're working on, take advantage of that. Because you're coding, you're feeling your chest, you're feeling your chest and your gut, and you're feeling your body. But at the same time, simultaneously, you're also in this out of body virtual world. That, you know, instead of a VR headset, screen, creating the visual, it's your brain creating the visuals. So it's, it's a simultaneously in the body while outside the body at the same time. So what that does is it can help shift a person's locus of self, like where their sense of self is seated at, habitually, and, and allow them to maybe interact or dialogue with, with with any afflictive phenomena, or let's say they spoke about rumination. They could talk they can maybe hold and perceive that sense that part of them that is doing that and work with it in a way that is very psychotherapeutic. So in a way, we're both changing state or we're training skills. But we're also empowering people to engage in this relational process with parts of themselves. But with that out of body of that,

wow, that's really powerful there. And I'm curious, because I haven't looked at any studies as a recent, because I know there could be a different side to that, too. I have seen some studies a long time ago that focused on disassociation, people that spent too long in a certain experience having a hard time re acclimating to their current space, and it could take like 510 minutes. Yeah, what have you what have you seen anything about that? And has that improved? Over time?

Yeah, like there's this with virtual reality, there's this risk of like D realization and depersonalization that, thank you. Yeah, yeah, it's a very serious risk, especially with children who have yet to like form like, their beliefs about the world and have it reflected by like material reality and have it reflect true to falseness. So for example, if a child does a VR experience, where maybe there's something happening with like, dolphins, and they're swimming with dolphins or something like that, I think this was someone who talked about this. I forget who it was, but they could come out of the experience. And and they would think that the experience they had was real, they in the sense that they actually had swum, you know, they would be like, Look, Mom, do you remember mom when I last week when I swam with dolphins? Yeah. But even with adults, and especially when we are working with psychiatric conditions, we have to be really careful with that sound assault, there's less of a risk. And that's, you know, one of the reasons we made the shift from virtual reality to this other type of immersive technology using bytes. Close eyes. So it's you're not in the, the world doesn't seem like it's this sort of different reality. It feels like, okay, it's generated by my brain. And so there's less of a risk of that. And, yeah, so we haven't we haven't seen any, any any of that pop up with sound. So

yeah, that's great. And I doubted that you would see it, but I wanted to like, see talk about the other side of that, too. And it's nice to know, I'm literally glad that you mentioned that because some people have this notion that oh, yeah, kids can handle virtual reality, because they're whizzes at Tech, they can use my iPad, that's not the case. And I saw that Mehta actually recently updated their minimum age requirement and lowered it from I believe, 13 to 10. If I'm not mistaken, which took a little bit of a long time to happen. For example, when I was a Emerging Technologies Librarian at the University of Oklahoma, and we had the Oculus go headsets parents would want their kids to try it on. And here I am trying to say research, like, I don't think you should try this, that parents not going to pay attention to that. So what are your thoughts on you know, helping people understand that VR and these types of immersive experiences, not just VR, aren't for everyone, but you should keep your ideas open to what might be working? Yeah.

Yeah, it's just we just have to be as transparent as possible in our research, and, and and doing as much education as we can, and setting expectations, you know, what the experience is and the benefits and not providing any sort of unrealistic expectations? And so yeah, in our we provide, like clinical guide, like a white paper where we go through that with our customers, and how they, how they should talk about it with their patients. So yeah, it just, it comes down to being providing a thorough education for our customers, and also the end user.

Absolutely. And I will absolutely make sure that I leaked the sound self website here, because I haven't been to the website in a long time. And it looks like there's been some incredible one rebranding that too, there's a lot more, there's a lot more resources to learn more about the science behind selling self, behind the team behind the mission vision values. So I want to encourage everyone that's listening to take some time to dig through that, because there's a lot of really beneficial resource material there.

Yeah, the website is WWE dot WWW dot sound. self.com. And you can look into our research there, and we have a blog and once this podcast comes out, we'll we'll put our will link link your podcast actually, on our website and

yeah, it's exciting. Oh, I'm really thrilled. And one I want to kind of like before we kind of start to lay in this point here, like I talked, I could talk for hours about sound self. I was genuinely excited whenever you scheduled this, I was at the gym, and I got the notification. And I was like, Oh, my God, sound self. They're coming, it's happening. So I am a huge fan person of the work that you do. So what is the vision of the future for sound self with, let's say, you know, we're in a mental health crisis, as we've been in for a long time. And these types of therapies, digital therapeutic landscape, as we're calling it as much needed, so let's say five years into the future, what is that pie in the sky goal for sound self or for you?

Well, I mean, mine, I think mine is very much aligned with the company is that it's, it's just a parent with mental health now that there is not enough supply to meet the demand. And we need it responsibly and carefully and do the research to create technologies that can really help people and make it accessible and affordable. And so it sounds so we we intend to scale this technology, so that people with mental health conditions, and and also people who want to just increase their wellness and learn meditation, and have a moment where they can put on sound, self and just feel a sense of relaxation at the end of the day. That it can be affordable and accessible to them and, and personalized as well. I forgot to mention earlier that this experience is heavily heavily personalized. And you I know, it's awesome that you were been with us since the VR days. And we learned a lot from the many users on VR. In our current system, what makes it really takes it to a next level is that we provide a lot of we designed some algorithms that incentivize breath in a certain way. So we can we get we kind of understand how you're toning, and we incentivize toning, such that you get more and more relaxed. So it's very personalized to your own system and where you're at in the moment. And we also do AI vocal biomarker analysis before and after. So you, the guide asked you how you're feeling and you just talk out loud how I'm feeling right now, before and at the end of the experience. And you get a mental fitness biomarker from that. So you can kind of track over time. So what So our goal is when someone can do this, and when it's such a convenient way, but we also be able to pair it with their other health, like fit their Fitbit, their whoop, or the Apple Watch, and be able to track over time how soundsoap is, is improving their life. And, yeah,

I love that. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And it's nice at some platforms. Like for example, in the new iOS 17 update, there's more like health, mental health tracking opportunities in the health app. So you can really customize it the way that you want. But it's nice because you can see your mindful minutes. So like how many mindful minutes did you do today, and I would love to see like an integration of you had 20 mindful minutes today, and let's say 10 of those were doing something, you know, digital therapeutic landscaping, and the other half was, you know, traditional meditation, because it's no longer one or the other. I think we're in this new space of doing what works, and existing the boundaries of that collaboration between technology and people.

Exactly, yeah.

So this is one thing I wanted to mention for listeners who are listening in as we're talking about mental health and talking about just different things that people might be dealing with, when they approach meditation or approach something like sound self, I wanted to remind listeners about the 988 lifeline. It is available across the US you can text or call. It's completely free. But it's a national network of local crisis centers that provide free and confidential support to people in a suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And they're committed to improving crisis services and advancing suicide prevention by empowering individuals, advancing professionals, best practices and building awareness. So 988 telephoned about it, it's a great resource. I've heard of people using it to also find housing assistance resources, food resources, just the things that you may not know what to ask for. So it's not just when you're in a mental health crisis, it could be fighting access to more resources around you. So wanted to share that and plug that for our listeners just in case they need But Dr. Sandeep, thank you so much for coming on coffee and code. Before we leave, is there anything else that you'd like to share with our audience today?

Thank you, Ashley for inviting me. And I think that's it, I love, please reach out to us. If you're interested or just want to learn more, you can find info on our website, sound self.com. And you can reach out to us there. And we'd love to hear from you. And we are eager to work with people. So if you have any ideas about partnerships, or if you're interested in doing research sounds off, or if you want to use this in your clinic, or if you're interested in this career Wellness Center, just feel free to reach out to us. And we'd love to speak with you.

Awesome, thank you so much Sunday, I'll be sure to include all that information in the show notes. So people can follow along on social sign up for your newsletter so they can be up to date on when the latest updates come out. I personally will be talking to my mental health professional to see if this is something they could carry in their office. Because I do believe in it from like a personal and a professional perspective. So thank you so much for sharing your time with us. Thank you for sharing your expertise with the the sound self team and with the world at large. I think it's really rare to find people that have the intersection of your experience of you have that that left and right brain, the artists brain but also the analytical scientific brain, which is we need more of that in science and academia. So thank you for the work that you do. I know it's not easy. But I look forward to potentially having you on the show again next time whenever there's a new iteration coming out. But thank you so much.

Thank you, Ashley. My pleasure.