I am trying to find out if the ICES® DigiCeutical® M1 can be used effectively for anxiety. I would appreciate comments from experts and users alike. Thank you!
In my experience, anxiety is a function of gut health (loose protein junctions allow for all sorts of absorption issues and reabsorption issues which can wreak havoc on brain), messing with the circadian rhythym (be sure to get 7-8 hours of sleep as an adult and going to bed at consistent time, exercising, and time in mediation / prayer, etc, and having support from family and friends. For the first item gut health, I have made many posts on using ICES M1 to help with gut shifting. Please note that herxheimer reactions can be vary real depending on the level of gut dysbiosis so go slow (using coils for only a few minutes one day and seeing how your bowels and mood/anxiety are the next day). When working with family, I often suggest they consider adding butyrate first such as Pure Encapsulations SunButyrate or Tributyrin-X to help gut integrity. Lastly as noted in other posts, copper (from our city water supply) and mycotoxin poisoning (from our HVAC duct plenum and mold on exterior stone facing north/west) were the primary drivers of our GI issues (which created anxiety), so we had to address those underlying causes first.
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One aspect of anxiety relates to a feeling of ever-increasing helplessness and hopelessness. This is something that happens to many victims of long-term chronic pain, typically after years or decades with dozens of failed “treatments” and the loss/waste of tens of thousands of dollars. When you finally get near the end of that long tragic road, you start to feel the anxiety of a person with no hope and no ability to do anything about it. For example, this is the state of mind they work to induce in people who are political prisoners in places such as Gulags and work camps in DPRK. A life with no hope.
No joke here, many people commit suicide at the end of this terrible road. So, not surprisingly, at some point many people (myself included) begin to feel very serious anxiety.
I realize that is different from many other experiences of anxiety from different causes, but it is relevant on this PEMF-related forum. Anyone who has been trapped on this dark road will know exactly what I am talking about.
The best way to put light back into such a life is to give a sense of hope and agency. This comes when you discover a tool such as ICES-PEMF that gives you a way to begin to have a sense of agency. You can begin to make the pain a bit better every day, not just inexorably worse as you suffer helplessly. You begin to get the sense that you can, finally, do something about it. As the pain recedes, you begin to have the sense of hope, even a sense of well-earned triumph. You begin to feel human again.
Without even noticing it, that growing sense of anxiety and doom just fade away, because you now have the sense that you have some level of control again. You can help yourself, even if the medical system (all of them) is powerless to help you.
So, if you use ICES-PEMF in such a way that it gives you hope and a sense of personal empowerment again, then it is my opinion that yes, this technology can really reduce anxiety.
Your case may be different. It may arise from the general sense of impending doom that some people get when they have a less severe, perhaps even imperceptible, case of pathologic inflammation. In this case, when the inflammation is reduced, it gives a better sense of well-being. This also leads to a reduction of anxiety.
So, for many people, it is my opinion that ICES-PEMF can be really helpful for anxiety.
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i completely agree with @TajD … in my reading and personally experience, gut health greatly impacts anxiety, sleep, mood, etc…
pemf is a great supplement to health (magnetic supplement) just as vitamins etc can be to health in diet.
i have come to understand that pemf is part of the puzzle to optimal health… our bodies are always managing health and all parts of our body vibrate at different frequencies dependent on many factors (ie, genetics, age, level of health, etc)… everything in the our physical world has a frequency/vibration. how pemf benefits is thru magnetic frequencies science has yet to catch up to explain. from my direct use and experimentation on myself, family, extended family, and friends, i know it can and has handle levels of stress, inflammation and pain, which affects anxiety.
even before this magnetic supplement (pemf), there are things we can all directly control: exercise, diet, and rest… altho it’s not an immediate fix, it is a long term, natural, and proper cure to many ailments we have.
pairing pemf with daily exercise (30 mins) with cutting out packaged foods, sugars, and bulk of white carbs, while increasing intake it fresh and fermented veggies, you can improve overall stress and anxiety in your body. the hard part is being consistent with the daily health habits… pemf, fortunately, is the easy part!
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I think anxiety can come from a number of different issues. My mother was always prone to panic attacks, and it worsened with onset of menopause. The same occurred with me during menopause, as did my depression. Not just during menopause, I suffered from extensive nerve damage which no amount of analgesics had any effect on the pain, so of course, the symptoms contributed further to my depression.
We treated both depression and anxiety with an otc Chinese mushroom herb, Spirit poria used in TCM to treat (but not cure) all kinds of mild to medium mental conditions: anxiety, depression, panic attacks, insomnia, vertigo… etc. During pandemic lockdowns in Canada, I found my anxiety and depression became more severe and more frequent: instead of taking it three or four times a year, I was taking the Spirit poria almost every month.
After I started using M1, I initially saw no effect, but gradually after a few months, I could see a difference: fewer episodes of depression/anxiety and at a degree of much less severity… and now, I hardly experience it at all. So yes, I think M1 does reduce these symptoms! Why or how, I don’t know, but even one of my friends noted my voice sounded different when I answer the phone — she says I sound much more upbeat, which she never heard before.
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Another cause is fake panic attacks caused presumably by adrenalin overload. Some call it hypersensitivity.
If that’s what it is, it will lessen and stop if you rest. And not just physically. Using your brain when you’ve used up your energy on physical activity could set it off, if you’ve got the underlying issues that causes this adrenalin thing. So you also need to stop your brain from worrying, working out a problem or whatever it is. Just stop, right away. It will just get worse and worse if you don’t. I don’t know if it can develop into a full scale panic attack, but it’s entirely possible. Better avoided.
May I know the protocol you selected and the location where you placed the coil? Thank you.
Left frontal cortex, side by side coils held with a headband, Omni-8 intensity 4-5. Sleep with this on all night with the M1 on the pillow. Works for anxiety, depression and panic attacks.
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Thank you so much for the information.
But if this isn’t chronic or if it’s mild, you can also try the herb spirit poria. No side effects: it’s a fungus/mushroom that you can buy in a Chinese herbal store. They sell them really cheap here in Canada for about $9 a box that lasts me for at least a few years, though I haven’t taken it since before covid began. Used to suffer from chronic depression and would take it every few months to treat depression attacks instead of prescription. The spirit poria comes in sliced, and you take the equivalent of a palm size in diameter, rinse it of debris and add about three measuring cups of water. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 5-20 minutes. It’s got a strange texture that I don’t like, but you can add to soup to disguise the taste. Goes to work almost immediately to remove depression, anxiety, even vertigo or dizziness. Also treats insomnia. It’s what they call in TCM a calming herb (opposite of ginseng which is a stimulant so don’t take both at the same time). Finish the drink and you can add more water to cook again, then pour out the dregs. Shouldn’t take more than that to treat the ailment — it’s not at all addictive, but if you take too often, the body adapts and it no longer works as effectively. If you can’t find it in stores, you can order online, but it’s a lot more expensive. Make sure it’s an off-white colour — some herbalists will bleach it so it looks snow-white.
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I am currently experiencing chest tightness due to anxiety. I am hopeful that Spirit Poria and ICES M1 combined could provide some relief, thank you so much for your valuable advice.
You’re always welcome. I didn’t feel a tightness but more of a heaviness in the chest, shortly followed by an attack of anxiety, depression or both. And then it’s like a deep despair that I couldn’t rise above it. And yeah, I’ve come close enough to be suicidal.
Whereas before it would incapacitate me as often as every few weeks, I haven’t felt it for some time now since applying the M1 regularly when I sleep. Haven’t gone a night without using it because I dread that feeling so much, so I don’t know if it’s gone permanently… but the M1 works so well, I’ve never used the spirit poria again — just didn’t like the taste, even though it was so fast acting.
I almost feel chest tightness every day, and whenever I think about the root cause of my anxiety (I can’t help thinking about it everyday), it triggers the symptoms, which can last the entire day. By the way, if you place the coils on top of the pillow, and when you lay your head on them, does it not press against your head, making it more uncomfortable and difficult to fall asleep?
No, the coils are on the frontal cortex just above my forehead, so there’s no way for me to sleep on them. What’s on the edge of my pillow is the M1 but I’m not sleeping on it.
I see, thank you. 
do any of you have a Garmin or some service that helps track your biometrics? I’ve been using a Garmin for a year for tracking running and sleep and everything in between and it’s been educational. for example, the last 6 months my sleep has just been complete garbage. my average level of stress ranged from 22-28 which wasn’t rated as “good” or “excellent”… just “fair” which i didn’t think anything of it. i adjusted the diet, cutting sugars and carbs notably… i ran ~40 mins about 3x a week… i even used the m1 trying different patterns (theta, Delta, gamma, but mostly Omni) on back of head, stacked, side by side… on temples sandwiched… forehead stacked, side by side… each for maybe 3 days to see if it moved the needle in my sleep numbers… the best location for me was on my stomach, stacked… I’d reach 15 on average for stress (“good”) and did feel well rested those days, but it was never consistent. i dunno if it was the placement, but i did position it where i last found it to work. yet, consistent results were elusive… maybe 2-3 days out of 7 I’d get your sleep numbers. and even tho my stress would be lower (15 vs 22+), I’d still find myself waking up at 3a quite regularly and sometimes not be able to go to sleep until 2h later even without resorting to phone or tv… interrupted sleep just really screwed with my day. i was a zombie… i even cut my precious coffee for 2 mos… that didn’t help my interrupted sleep… i took and still take magnesium (threonate), and I’d feel sleepy after taking and stay asleep! i thought i had found my solution… until the start of the 3rd week 
… back to square one.
“so this is part of getting old,” i thought to myself. i had to take naps in the day to compensate for what wasn’t working at night. it was so hard for me to accept this as the new normal. my super power used to be sleeping anywhere, anytime on command! i used to be a deep sleeper too…
cutting to the chase…i heard about earthing where you electrically ground yourself to the Earth like what any building does with their electrical system. i thought that was odd and a bit out there. grounding our bodies?? sounds like a setup for a scam and lots of room for gimmicks. while the market for grounding products are nowhere nearly as expensive as pemf devices, there are a hundred products and no name cos out there that have something to sell you to get grounded! haha… FORTUNATELY, everything is measurable, so there is some degree of evidence to at least know you’re doing “something” for your body vs just going by feeling that it’s “working”… the results from grounding vary from person to person (of course), but there are some common results people experience. many people swear they’ve gotten the best sleep ever… others have had their inflammation and pain (arthritis usually) go down very notably within a day’s to few weeks’ worth of use. i don’t have any obvious chronic inflammation like that to say that worked for me in that way. i do have eczema, so i am curious to see what happens there…
anyway, the point i wanted to make… there is something positive to this grounding. 6 days out of 7, once I got my setup right, i can tell you that my average sleep stress score falls into the category of “excellent” (8-12 range) and the 7th day it’s "not working, I’m at a 15 (“good”)! last night i started on the mat and woke up to see i was completely off the mat. however, the residual effects were enough to have a decent sleep and my stress level at a 16 (“fair”) with restlessness ok and everything else fine. i didn’t even wake up in the middle of the night!
I’m about 1 month of consistent use on my “proper” setup and it was only by the 5th week that I’m sleeping thru the night … the last 3 days… without waking up unable to go back to sleep. certainly not enough days to celebrate a solid change in trend… will see how the next 3 weeks to months go.
the calm i feel is definitely noticeable… hitting averages of 6 - 12 most be comparable to meditational levels of relaxation.
i really have a year’s worth of sleep data on my watch to review, but i can say with data that my stress levels during sleep are consistently impacted when grounding “properly” fingers crossed this is what my body is missing.
I’d encourage you to get a sleep measuring device like a Fitbit or Garmin or oura and then after 2-4 weeks of measurable stress data (i think Garmin is exclusive on their patented tech to calculate stress, but others might calculate similarly - accuracy tbd), try grounding! would be interesting to see how it affects your numbers🤔
@OptimalHealth, Garmin acquired Firstbeat Analytics, which provided a sensor which tracked heart rate variability among other things. The Firstbeat/Garmin stress number is calculated in part based on the HRV. There are multiple studies on pubmed on grounding and increasing (which is better than decreasing) HRV, so I definitely think you are on to something. High HRV means lower stress number and low HRV means higher stress number. I bought a grounding sleep mat a while back and never used it. I’ll have to find it and give it a try. My Vivosmart 4s died after a little over a year so I am using an Apple Watch now. Apple Health app will show the HRV over time. My hypothesis is that HRV would increase (or Garmin Stress score would decrease) with consistent grounding. I’ll report back if that is true for me or not.
thx… haha yes, read about that, but wasn’t sure what other devices used to measure stress. thx for that detail about Garmin algo and using hrv to calculate stress.
i have also measured, but it isn’t as obvious, my heart rate lowered. when more aerobically fit, my lowest heart rate during sleep is 46… these days my night time heart rate without grounding only goes as low as 48 and range between 48-52… with grounding I’ve noticed 43-47 with most nights at 44 or 45 when stress level is about 8-10 on avg.
anyway… when you do ground you want to maximize consistent contact throughout the night. using most products for earthing, you’ll have a 100k ohm resistor on the cable connected to the mat… this also impairs grounding efficiency where if your avg body voltage before grounding is about 1V, the lowest you can bring your voltage down to is about 19-25mV
skin contact, surface area, and moisture from body heat throughout the night can ensure quality/consistent contact throughout the night.
these little details are things that i wonder how many people miss and then complain how grounding doesn’t do anything for them. I’m not saying grounding will noticably improve your health or that you will gain all or some of the benefits people claim, BUT i think all the benefits people do get are from what grounding does to relax the body. whether it’s really the negative electrons from the earth going into the body or not, who knows (and how can this be proven)?
like pemf, there are some wonderful testimonies and fantastic claims… how this all works, i have yet to find a source that explains what’s really going on. the only obvious thing is that it grounds the body’s voltage…
as a side note, using the a9 with an AC adapter brings my body voltage up to some crazy numbers… at least up to 15+volts vs. the avg of 4V during the day.
Bob wasn’t kidding when he was talking about emf coming from ac to dc conversion.
now i get the option of both pemf and grounding benefits if I wanted to.
i don’t think grounding affects (negates) pemf tho… there’s talk in forums how grounding can act as an antenna to attract emf… using an emf meter, i couldn’t find proof of that.
i see nothing but good stuff from grounding evident in my near meditational level of relaxation during sleep use!
I would like to chime in to make a couple of personal observations.
I don’t think of myself as an anxiety-prone person, but life does throw random curve balls, so for me, anxiety is a periodic issue. But I do notice a few things that might be helpful for people:
I recently started supplementing with Gly-NAC, and that has the unexpected benefit of reducing my anxiety level overall. If you don’t know about Gly-NAC, I suggest you view a YouTube video by Dr. Brad Stanfield:
There are several other good videos on NAC and the combination Gly-NAC, but I think this is a good place to start. I also read the medical literature he cites, and I think his presentation of it is spot-on correct.
In addition, I find that grounding reduces my night-time anxiety. I just feel overall more relaxed and less subject to the buzzing feeling in the background, real or imagined, I don’t know for sure which it is.
And I find that when using ICES-PEMF, I have much less frequent spikes of night-time anxiety. I sleep with a C5 2x2 coil array, sometimes just under a hand or foot. The effects are subtle, but interestingly I notice that when the device stops working (power bank battery runs our, or coils become unplugged) that I very often wake suddenly with some pretty high-anxiety inducing thoughts, conveniently at about 3:00 or 4:00 AM. Once I am awake I can usually just talk myself back down. When I reconnect coils or power, I can usually get back to sleep pretty easily. But this gets me thinking…
I’m not always using ICES-PEMF at night for any specific pain or injury. I just use it nightly because it helps calm me down and generally feel better. I can’t put a number on this, so as an engineer I feel a bit silly even saying this. But for me the feeling is quite real, and I do not think it is placebo because I will wake suddenly whenever ICES-PEMF stops working for one reason or another.
Also, the effect seems to work well, even when I just use ICES-PEMF on a hand or foot that is not in any pain.
So, my current thinking is that focally applied (at a single point) ICES-PEMF has a whole-body systemic effect that promotes an overall feeling of well-being and a reduction of anxiety. This is reasonable if you consider the fact that blood circulation can easily carry effects from one point on the body to have an overall effect on the entire body. This is how injections work, of course, just as a simple example.
Also, another thing I noticed was that as I improved my peripheral circulation (hands and feet), I find that my hands and feet are warmer, have better sensation, and I attribute this to improved peripheral circulation. This also made the effects of PEMF on my hands and feet more noticeable on my overall response.
So, I decided to test it.
My wife and I and a few friends/family members tested this by just rigging up an A9 with internal coils and wearing it around in a pocket during the day. Everyone who tried it reported back to me that it had the effect of making them feel better overall, and helped with inflammation and/or pain in a few cases, even when the pain/inflammation was not located where the A9 was located, further suggesting a whole-body effect.
So, I am currently developing a new product which is a variation on the M1 (because it is more flexible than an A9 for experimental purposes) but it has the option of using internal coils and can just be slipped into a pocket during the day to have this overall beneficial effect.
If anyone is interested in trying one of these prototypes, I think I could sell it at cost for field testing. Just reply in this discussion that you have interest so I can plan on the number of prototypes to make. I think we will call this prototype a model “P9”.
I think these will be ready for testing in July or August, just a month or two. Please let me know if you are interested in field testing a prototype.
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