Most startups are born of an entrepreneur perceiving a need and coming up with a fix. For Westchester founder Jeanne Ricks, the process was much more personal. Ricks suffered from severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for years, the result of a near-fatal drowning incident while kayaking. The experience haunted her so much that she had to rely on heavy-duty medications just to get through day-to-day life. Believing there had to be something better, Ricks scoured the internet over the course of countless sleepless nights. She even wrote a book, The Biology of Beating Stress, based on her findings. “I needed to understand how this thing called PTSD could have so much destructive control over me,” she recalls. “Not just my emotions, like fear, but my thoughts, my appetite, my sense of time, my experience of life itself.”
At that point, Ricks says the choices were to either stop the pain of living altogether or develop solutions. Research led her down the path of sound therapy to vibroacoustics, which is the scientific study of the interaction between sound and vibration. Then she learned about binaural beat brainwave entrainment, a complex neurological concept that boils down to listening to two tones with slightly different frequencies at the same time to bring about a calming effect. The science is still nascent, and more research is needed, but some experts say there are several early studies showing promising effects on pain perception, anxiety, and memory.
“This is going to make a huge impact in people’s lives.”
—Jeanne Ricks
Inspired, she established VibroAcousticsNY, a New Rochelle-based startup. Getting selected for county’s Element 46 Tech Accelerator Fall 2024 cohort was the game-changer she needed. Ricks’ invention, the Sonic Calm Mat, looks like a yoga mat but functions as a powerful wellness tool, thanks to seven embedded speakers that deliver carefully programmed sound frequencies through the body. Headphones provide synchronized brainwave entrainment audio. She joined forces with Alfredo Astua, MD, Director of Sleep Medicine at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in New York, for a demo trial. It turned out that a 23-minute session can bring about measurable reductions in cortisol levels and anxiety, lower blood pressure, and improved sleep. “Unlike pharmacological interventions, which can lead to dependency and other health risks, sound therapy offers a natural and non-invasive way to retrain the body and mind to respond to stress in healthier ways,” says Ricks.
For funding, Ricks did what many a founder before her has done—hit up family and friends for early capital while actively seeking angel investors to spur manufacturing and expansion. She credits her patent attorney with helping to bring the Sonic Calm Mat to fruition and positioning her for rapid growth in the $20B+ stress management industry, and says she gained lots of practical business experience through the Element 46 cohort. Now collaborating with Hezues R at Social Impact Content, a high-tech education platform in Yonkers, Ricks is developing the mat technology into a chair format. “I’m passionate about continuous learning and innovation in the field of stress management,” she says. “This is going to make a huge impact in people’s lives.”
For information about the Element 46 Tech Accelerator program, go to element46.org. Learn more about the Sonic Calm Mat at the VibroAcousticsNY website.
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