In the late 1980’s, Dr. Benjamin Gavish (“Beny”), a biophysicist (and part-time ballroom dance teacher) began researching a biological phenomenon known as vasomotion – the slow and rhythmic oscillation of small blood vessels within the body, which is of vital importance. While research had shown that vasomotion was reduced in those with vascular diseases, Beny was also intrigued by the fact that vasomotion was altered when a person smoked a cigarette or told a lie and he became interested in how vasomotion was affected by stress levels. It was this curiosity that led him to develop a technique to better study vasomotion quantitatively. Two bigger questions began to dawn on him: Could one amplify the blood vessels’ vasomotion in a controlled manner? And if so, would such a change be beneficial to health?

Little did Beny know that his breakthrough would come when his wife, Dr. Leah Gavish (biologist and part-time dance teacher), was complaining of a headache. She happened to visit him at the lab while he was in the middle of a vasomotion experiment. On a whim, he mounted sensors on her fingers and observed that she was experiencing a normal vasomotion rhythm of 6-per-minute. Thinking back to his dancing hobby, Beny recalled people’s natural tendency to follow musical rhythms. He turned on a sound synthesizer that could create tones based on a selected rhythm and played a pattern for Leah. What happened next was amazing. Her breathing pattern “locked” on the sound pattern for 10 minutes and her vasomotion increased considerably. Beny’s visualization of the “blood vessel dance” which he had just created was interrupted by Leah announcing that her headache was gone!

This was only the beginning.

Dr. Gavish began experimenting with guided breathing in a gym in Jerusalem. Using special music composed by a gifted group of experts in digital music, he measured people’s respiration response to changes in a musical rhythm. Beny and Leah tested the ability to guide people’s breathing from a normal rate to as-slow-as-possible-but-still-comfortable levels using enjoyable sound patterns.

The results of the experiments were striking! People who listened to the changing rhythm displayed blood pressure reductions within ten minutes accompanied by frequent sensations of “floating,” “weightlessness,” and “deep relaxation.” Those that attempted to relax simply by listening to pre-recorded, commercial music did not show the same results.

Having faith that he was onto a major finding, Beny set up a “garage-operation” and began to develop the first prototype of what would later become RESPeRATE, a completely unique device. This non-drug solution is now clinically validated by 8 published clinical trials, has received regulatory clearance in major markets around the world, and is currently in use by over 75,000 people. It is safely and effectively lowering their blood pressure through device-guided breathing.

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