Tech of the Future: Biofeedback

Every one of us craves sleep, endures the pangs of hunger, quells the hunger with muchos tacos, gets ill (hopefully not from the tacos), feels his dispositions wax and wane, and some of us even shed our endometrial linings on a regular basis. If you're anything like me--which is equal parts likely and unlikely--you've noticed that in addition to these obvious recurring events, your body has many subtle cycles and rhythms. And so it is with all living organisms.

As discussed in my prior post, feedback loops are a very useful tool in understanding and changing behavioral patterns. Biofeedback, one day, will provide opportunities for this feedback on the physical scale. I don't pretend to know how the technology would be integrated with our bodies, but here is a list of possibilities that I anticipate and desire:


Sleep, Exercise, and Caloric Metrics
Because who doesn't need a little more guilt about consuming those beers and hot wings late into the night? Or more of a reason to take that bike ride or seek a good night's sleep?

Menstruation Tracker
I only have my perspective here... but I think this form of biofeedback could be super useful for men too! I see a few possibilities: 23rd century rhythm method and fertility notification, early pregnancy detection with gestational feedback throughout pregnancy, PMS prediction, no more yearly women's wellness visits or self breast exams.

Medical Assist
Imagine a world without blood screens or diagnostic procedures; where cancer is highly treatable due to early detection; physician notification when your levels are out of balance; immediate detection of allergic reaction before Anaphylaxis occurs; emergency services alerted in the event of an elderly fall; minor illnesses  diagnosed without a trip to the doctor's office; and perhaps the eradication of hypochondria.

Mental Health Awareness
Science still has a lot of progress to make in the understanding of mental illness. Biofeedback would offer annals of patterns related to mood and stress, as well as an opportunity for patients to opt to provide researchers with data that can aid in deeper knowledge of brain function.

Although I'm certain this kind of intimate biological perspective would not appeal to some, I see the future of this technology as highly customized to an individual's desires, useful for the advancement of science, affordable for all who would seek it, and able to integrate into the field of medicine. I would certainly be one who would want to use this technology to realize my own biorhythms and to aid in improving my lifestyle for the sake of joyful longevity.

Fear Loop

As an observer, I'm always interested in noting the patterns and cycles that occur in the apparent chaos of life. Learning a programming language and studying the paradigms of  coding has offered me a new and interesting lens with which to view this circuity. One of the concepts that has been prevalent in my thoughts lately is the loop. In programming, a loop is a series of code that continually repeats until a specified value is reached, until a specified iteration of loops is complete, until the loop is ended with a stop statement, or never--in the case that the loop is intended to be infinite or lacks the necessary programming to interrupt the circuit.

Starting out on such lofty plan as becoming a developer is frightening. My family is not college educated. I'm 29, which feels like a late age to begin to code. I'm a female in a field that is almost completely dominated by males. I live in a small city that doesn't seem to have much industry for programming. I didn't pursue advanced mathematics in high school. I didn't have exposure to the concept of programming as a career choice at an early age. I might not be very good. Perhaps I'm not intelligent enough, or capable of understanding the levels of abstraction. I'm not sure I can keep up with the ever-increasing amount of knowledge required to keep an edge in the field. I don't know any local developers personally.

Now read the prior paragraph over and over. This is my fear loop.

We all have repeating thought loops, whether we are consciously aware of them or not. We internalize ideas from things that we have heard people say, things we have felt, experiences we have had, and we form them into a series of code that we bury deep in our internal programming. One day, for one reason or another, that portion of the program runs, and the loop begins. My supposition is that this is a form of protection that has evolved, and that at one point or another has served to keep us safe and to prolong our lives. In this case, though, I don't feel that I'm benefiting from this loop, and now I'm writing new code to interrupt the circuit. I'm not out in the wild grabbing tigers by the tails, or anything. I just want to do what I enjoy without fear and without feeling like it's something that I cannot or should not do... when that's just not true.