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Darma: the smart cushion that monitors your posture

Everyone knows sitting at a desk all day is bad for you, but it’s hard to do anything about it. However, this smart cushion promises to improve your posture and reduce your stress levels.

Make no mistake, sitting for hours at a time is very bad for you. It’s even been called “the smoking of our generation”. It makes us more obese, increases the chance of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and premature death. That’s where Darma comes in.

It’s the world’s first smart cushion, or ‘inactivity tracker’, if you will. It monitors your sitting habits, tells you where you’re going wrong, and ultimately – this is the hope, anyway – improves your posture.

How does it do this? It feeds back data to an app on your phone, or your desktop computer. This then reminds you to get up if you’ve been sedentary too long, advises you on your posture, and even tailors stretches to you so you can avoid problems like back pain.

It even monitors your heart rate and breathing rate, so it knows when you’re damaging your health and increasing your stress levels. Get too frazzled, and it’ll suggest a brief breathing exercise to help you relax and regain focus. If you’re not so stressed you’ve thrown it out the window, of course.

This should not only improve your physical health, but your mental health too.

It’s already soared past its funding goal on Kickstarter. It should be ready for delivery in June next year.

Read more: Pavlok: The fitness band that shocks you out of your bad habits

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