The science behind Optim

Where human performance meets real physiology

Watch Dr. Jon Solheim in discussion with CEO Dr. Charles Ethan Paccione about the science behind OPTIM.

Built Around the Nervous System

Performance, recovery, and resilience begin with the nervous system.How the body regulates stress shapes readiness, sleep, adaptation, and long-term durability.⁶,⁷ OPTIM is designed not only to measure physiology, but to support regulation in real time.

Beyond Tracking

Most technologies measure the body. Some influence it. Few are built to do both.⁸–¹⁰OPTIM combines real-time physiological sensing with adaptive stimulation at the wrist.²–⁵,²¹ This is the shift from measuring physiology to supporting it in real time.

Why the Wrist?

The wrist is not just practical. It is biologically relevant. The median nerve runs through this area and carries signals toward brain regions involved in autonomic regulation.¹,² That makes the wrist a natural site for a wearable designed to support nervous-system regulation.²–⁵

Why HRV

HRV is one of the most useful signals for understanding stress, recovery, and adaptation.⁶,⁷ When measured consistently over time, it helps reveal how the body is responding to training, sleep, travel, and psychological load.⁷ OPTIM uses HRV-related signals to help estimate state and adapt support in real time.

Why Median Nerve Stimulation

Median nerve stimulation is emerging as a promising wearable-compatible pathway for influencing autonomic and stress-related physiology.²–⁵The science suggests a plausible mechanism, with effects shaped by timing, parameters, and user state.¹,²,⁴,⁵,²³ That is why OPTIM is designed as an adaptive, closed-loop system — where sensing helps inform support.

OPTIM AI™

Machine learning, coaching, and predictive insight are becoming an important part of performance technology.

OPTIM AI™ is designed to go further.

It helps interpret patterns across physiology, training, recovery, and behavior to generate more personalized guidance and recommendations.

But insight is only one part of the system.

OPTIM is designed not only to read physiological state, but to help respond to it — combining coaching and prediction with real-time physiological support, so both mind and body are accounted for together.

Closed-Loop by Design

OPTIM continuously captures cardiovascular signals at the wrist using PPG. Those signals help inform how and when support is delivered. The goal is not to force calm.It is to support regulation capacity.¹⁰,²³,²⁴

What Makes OPTIM Different

OPTIM is built on a simple idea:
The future of performance technology is not only better measurement. It is better regulation. Helping the body respond better to load, recover more consistently, and sustain performance over time.²¹

Our Scientific Position

Autonomic state can be measured meaningfully when interpreted in context.⁶,⁷

Breathing and HRV biofeedback can influence autonomic dynamics.⁸–¹⁰,¹⁵

Median nerve stimulation is an emerging, scientifically grounded pathway with growing experimental support.²–⁵

OPTIM is built within these boundaries: a nervous-system support system for more informed recovery, more adaptive regulation, and more durable performance over time.

WHY THE NERVOUS SYSTEM MATTERS FOR PERFORMANCE

Your autonomic nervous system controls focus, recovery, alertness, sleep, and even pain perception. By learning to modulate it intentionally, you unlock:

  • Faster recovery
  • Better performance and focus under pressure
  • Improved energy management
  • Higher HRV and better cardiovascular resilience

HRV (heart rate variability) – an index of your autonomic nervous system - reflects how well your nervous system can respond to stress and performance demands. OPTIM trains this responsiveness via real-time biofeedback and median nerve stimulation, raising your baseline capacity to adapt and perform.

OPTIM is designed to regulate your body’s engine—your nervous system—using scientifically validated stimulation methods and breathwork techniques to enhance recovery, focus, energy, and adaptability. Unlike wearables that merely track, OPTIM acts to change your STATE in real time.

OPTIM Performance Model

Performance peaks at the right balance of arousal. Too little and you’re flat, too much and you burn out. OPTIM keeps you in the zone with median nerve stimulation and breathing: up when you need energy, down when you need recovery, balanced when you need focus.

  • Upregulation: High-frequency MNS + rapid breathing to elevate arousal before competition.
  • Downregulation: Low-frequency MNS + slow breathing to accelerate recovery and prevent drop-off.
  • Regulation: Moderate-frequency MNS + paced breathing to sustain focus and adaptability.

Performance and the Nervous System

Athletic performance depends on the autonomic nervous system. The sympathetic branch drives readiness and action. The parasympathetic branch restores calm and recovery. OPTIM keeps both in balance—before, during, and after performance.

  • Before: High-frequency stimulation primes focus, alertness, and readiness.
  • During: Moderate stimulation sustains energy and precision without overstrain.
  • After: Low-frequency stimulation accelerates recovery and restoration.

OPTIM’s proprietary machine learning and AI model adapts to every stage of training, helping athletes perform at their peak and recover faster.

OPTIM Life Mode

Your nervous system follows a 24-hour rhythm: alert in the morning, balanced through the day, and restorative at night. Stress disrupts this cycle—spiking arousal, delaying recovery, and impairing sleep.

OPTIM keeps you aligned.

  • Daytime: Moderates stress spikes, sustains focus, and restores balance.
  • Nighttime: Eases wind-down, stabilizes sleep, and enhances recovery.

OPTIM actively regulates your autonomic cycle, helping you perform, adapt, and recover—around the clock.

Unique path to HRV optimization

MEDIAN NERVE ⇄ VAGUS NERVE

Many patients and consumer neurotech devices use transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) to drive recovery and HRV. OPTIM takes a safer, more wearable, more adaptable, and more effective wrist-based approach to regulating the nervous system and increasing HRV by stimulating the median nerve at the wrist.

Decades of research conducted on peripheral nerve stimulation has determined that median nerve stimulation is a reliable and non-invasive method to influence vagal tone and autonomic balance.

OPTIM´s novel patent-pending means of regulating the nervous system via median nerve stimulation at the wrist in combination with biofeedback provides a more accessible and user-friendly approach to regulating vagal activity (i.e. HRV) daily.

PEER-REVIEWED FIELD SCIENCE

PEER-REVIEWED FIELD SCIENCE

1. Median Nerve Stimulation Improves HRV

• Transcutaneous median nerve stimulation increases HRV (SDNN) and vagal activity in healthy individuals without adverse effects.

https://ht.amegroups.org/article/view/8726/html

• Systematic reviews show frequency-specific effects of wrist nerve stimulation (40–200 Hz) can modulate autonomic activity.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109471592400028X

2. HRV Biofeedback Enhances Athletic Performance

• A systematic review showed HRV biofeedback significantly improved both fine and gross motor performance in athletes.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28573597/

• A 2020 meta-analysis confirmed HRV biofeedback is safe, user-friendly, and effective at improving HRV, fine and gross motor function in athletes. 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7386140/

3. Breathing Techniques Improve Baroreflex & HRV

• Resonance frequency breathing is found to improve baroreflex sensitivity, peak expiratory flow, and heart rate recovery.

Lehrer et al., 2003 – DOI: 10.1023/A:1022461130125

• Breathwork produces greater improvement in mood and reduction in respiratory rate more than mindfulness meditattion

https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/pdf/S2666-3791(22)00474-8.pdf

4. Vagus Nerve Stimulation Builds Resilience

• Auricular tVNS improved HRV in healthy participants, enhancing vagal tone and emotional regulation.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8830655/

• Broader reviews identify vagal modulation as a key tool for enhancing resilience, emotional regulation, and executive function in both athletes and general populations.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1639866/full

References:

  1. Ruggiero DA, Anwar S, Kim J, Glickstein SB. Visceral afferent pathways to the thalamus and olfactory tubercle: behavioral implications. Brain Res. 1998;799:159-171.

  2. Maharjan A, Peng M, Russell B, Cakmak YO. Investigation of the optimal parameters of median nerve stimulation and its effects on heart rate variability: a systematic review. Neuromodulation. 2022;25(8):1268-1279.

  3. Tsuk S, Weiss G, Amedi R, et al. The effect of transcutaneous median nerve stimulation on heart rate variability in healthy young adults. Health Technol (Berl). 2024;14:45-55.

  4. Sanchez-Perez JA, Gazi AH, Rahman FN, et al. Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and median nerve stimulation reduce acute stress in young healthy adults: a single-blind sham-controlled crossover study. Front Neurosci. 2023;17:1213982.

  5. Zhou Y, Masoumi Shahrbabak S, Bahrami R, et al. Non-pharmacological mitigation of acute mental stress-induced sympathetic arousal: comparison between median nerve stimulation and auricular vagus nerve stimulation. Sensors. 2025;25(5):1371.

  6. Task Force of the European Society of Cardiology; North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology. Heart rate variability: standards of measurement, physiological interpretation and clinical use. Circulation. 1996;93(5):1043-1065.

  7. Buchheit M. Monitoring training status with heart rate measures: do all roads lead to Rome? Front Physiol. 2014;5:73.
  8. Jiménez Morgan S, Molina Mora JA. Effect of heart rate variability biofeedback on sport performance: a systematic review. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback. 2017;42(2):1-11.

  9. Pagaduan JC, Chen YS, Fell JW, Wu SSX. Can heart rate variability biofeedback improve athletic performance? J Hum Kinet. 2020;73:103-114.

  10. Perez-Gaido M, Lalanza JF, Parrado E, Capdevila L. Can heart rate variability biofeedback improve short-term effort recovery? Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback. 2021;46(2):215-226.

OPTIM is a general wellness wearable and non-medical consumer product. It is not a medical device as defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and it is not a medical device within the meaning of Regulation (EU) 2017/745 (Medical Device Regulation).

 OPTIM is intended solely for general wellness, performance awareness, recovery support, and educational purposes. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, mitigate, prevent, monitor, predict, or alleviate any disease or medical condition, and it does not provide medical advice, clinical guidance, or clinical decision support.

Information and insights provided by OPTIM are intended to support general wellness and performance understanding only and should not be relied upon for medical decisions. OPTIM makes no guarantees regarding health, fitness, recovery, or performance outcomes, and individual results may vary.

Users should consult a licensed or qualified healthcare professional prior to use if they have a medical condition, are under medical supervision, have implanted electronic devices, are pregnant, or have cardiovascular, neurological, or other health concerns. Use of OPTIM is voluntary and at the user’s discretion.