A Power Balance to be World Champion ?

Thursday, 03 February 2011 08:30

F1 drivers are wearing 'the magic bracelet'. Are its benefits illusion or reality? Or even both?

Created in USA, Power Balance is a silicone bracelet. There are two holograms in Mylar on it encoded with frequencies in order to react positively or not on body’s flows energy. According to the website official of the firm, “when the static Power Balance Hologram comes in contact with your body’s energy field, it begins to resonate in accordance with each individual’s biological, creating a harmonic loop that optimizes your energy field and maintains maximum energy flow while clearing the pathways so the electro-chemical exchange functions like the well-tuned generator it was meant to be.” Sceptics may doubt these supernatural claims. But, as with hypnosis or the amber stones, only with personal experience can you know for sure. According to Sportsmen who adopted it, they feel as if it offers them balance, strength and flexibility. Normally… They say they feel at 100% of their potential and feel better prepared to win. Nobody can denounce or favor it, because it’s a personal feeling. On the official website, we can see sportsmen react.” It is amazing how I feel better, stronger and more flexible when I exercise. I especially feel a difference on the track.” Rubens Barrichello said.

Happiness at arm's length ?

Optimisation of sporting performances is not the only claimed asset. Some have reported finding sleep easier and life less stressful. There is a strand of thought that maintains to have faith in something makes it true. The writer, Laurent Gounelle “man has created is own reality. It’s their faith fruit. Faith becomes true because you want to become true unintentionally. It is possible the bracelet produces only a placebo effect that its benefits are unrelated to the impulse mechanism claimed.

With this in mind, I decided to construct my own experiment, one where there could be no placebo effect. My father has a dairy herd. The milk yield on some cows didn’t correspond to the dairies’ standards. A necklace was placed on every cow with a stone. The operation succeeded yet the animals could know nothing about it: they gave excellent milk yields only some month after. It's only anecdotal, but it's difficult to explain otherwise. Maybe, just maybe, there is something to it.
By Sabrina Beaudoin

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