O.ZEN, A JOURNEY INTO THE WORLD OF WELL-BEING WITH UBISOFT®
O.zen is Ubisoft’s first fun, connected program that enables you to analyze your heart rate and develop good habits to manage your stress and improve your well-being, thanks to the control of your breathing
MONTRÉAL (CANADA), April 12, 2017 – Ubisoft Canada is proud to announce the launch of O.zen, the first gamified, connected program that helps you better manage stress, gain vitality and improve your concentration through the mastery of your breathing. Based on the principle of heart coherence, O.zen is an innovative mobile application that was designed as part of a preventive approach that complements a healthy lifestyle. It seeks to foster everyday well-being and can also be used more occasionally, in particularly stressful or high-emotion situations.
Equipped with an extremely accurate sensor, the program directly restores the heart rate to normal, with no wait, to within a few hundredths of a second. “For the first time, you can monitor your physiological signals, act on them and find your ideal breathing while having fun,” explains Dr. David O’Hare, physician and heart coherence specialist.
Olivier Ernst, Managing Director of Ubisoft Canada, states: “In a society that places increasing demands on us, Quebecers are looking for innovative ways to help them self-manage their stress or anxiety, improve their sleep quality and boost their concentration. This is why Ubisoft created O.zen, a program that’s distinctive thanks to its fun approach, based on gaming and simple, effective exercises that help people integrate heart coherence into their everyday lives. This is a first for us in the field of well-being, and we are happy to be able to rely on key partners, including a number of health professionals, in bringing this project to fruition. ”
Regular, personalized assistance
Developed in collaboration with Dr. Frédéric Kochman, child psychiatrist and heart coherence specialist, O.zen complements a healthy lifestyle. Users are guided by the advice of a personal coach, Coach K, and must fill out a range of topic-specific tests to help them create good habits, which in turn enable them to achieve better well-being through breathing over time.
- Personalization: The program features over 600 self-reflection questions (physical and psychological state) to help users create a personalized profile. They can create their own avatar, self-assess and enjoy tailored content.
- Breathing: Breathing games and exercises that match the user’s needs are spread over 70 levels and 14 different programs. As such, the experience can play out over the long term.
- Everyday use: The program can be used every day in 3- to 8-minute sessions.
- Unique sensor: With the help of a fingertip sensor, O.zen records the heartbeat and provides not only statistics, but also exercises to help go beyond simply reporting results.
Heart coherence at the heart of the experience
The concept of heart coherence, popularized in France by Dr. David Servan-Schreiber, rests on the close, reciprocal link between the body’s two main organs: the heart can influence the brain. Breathing deeply and calmly, and focusing on the length of the exhalation, can affect the so-called “autonomic” nervous system—breathing being the only automatic function that can be acted on consciously.
The nervous system is made up of two branches, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic, whose respective roles are to accelerate the heartbeat (by releasing adrenaline) and to slow it down (using acetylcholine). During breathing, the inhalation temporarily inhibits the influence of the parasympathetic system and produces an acceleration of the heart rate. Conversely, exhaling slows the heart down by stimulating the parasympathetic system.
O.zen is available as an application for iPad and iPhone at the retail suggested price of $149.99. For more information about O.zen, please visit experience-ozen.com.
