EXCLUSIVE: Firm behind Meghan Markle’s stress-busting disc advertises her wearing it with a discount code as expert believes it’s ‘no accident’ Duchess showed off ‘strategically placed’ $4 device
The makers of a $4 anxiety-busting wrist patch worn by Meghan Markle have already turned it into an online advert, MailOnline can exclusively reveal today.
Brand and culture expert Nick Ede believes it was no accident that the Duchess of Sussex managed to show off the NuCalm Biosignal Processing Disc on her arm while walking in Montecito over the weekend.
With Harry on a boys trip to Asia with Nacho Figueras, the Duchess of Sussex, 42, had been wrapped up in a £1,200 Max Mara wool coat despite it hitting 73F (22.7C), but royal watchers spotted her left cuff was turned up and a mysterious blue sticker on her arm.
Hours later the patch was confirmed as a NuCalm Biosignal Processing Disc, by the company itself. The US mindfulness business shared pictures of the Duchess on their official Instagram page.
Offering a free trial, a discount code and promoting an app costing up to $49-a-month, NuCalm, which says its products are ‘clinically proven to reduce stress and improve sleep’, said: ‘The Duchess wore a disc, which activates the parasympathetic nervous system’. In a hint Meghan may use the app, the firm said the wrist patch is a ‘tool to get the most clinical benefit from your NuCalm subscription’.
NuCalm used the pictures of the Duchess showing off the wrist patch to promote their company and offer people a free trial and a discount code
Meghan Markle was spotted wearing a coat and scarf worth $3,000 despite the warm weather in California
Nick Ede told MailOnline today it is yet another sign that her lifestyle blog The Tig may soon return, bankrolled by new business partnerships.
He said: ‘Meghan’s strategic placement of a stress pack from a relatively new start-up company who reposted the image of her in their own social media is a clear message that she is looking to build her lifestyle brand and create a platform for her followers to benefit from her experiences and the products that help her.
Dr Blake Holloway developed the products over 20 years
‘The image was a clear message to say she’s stressed but she’s using a patch to help her. Her brand is very strong so I think that this is a good way to go, with partnerships’.
MailOnline has asked the Duchess of Sussex’s spokesman to comment.
Meghan is known to love an ‘arm party’ – beloved by the West Coast’s celebrity elite – with the royal often stacking her £7,050 Cartier love bangle and Princess Diana’s Tank Louis Cartier watch, likely to be worth around £140,000 or more.
But it was the $4 patch on her wrist that sparked the most attention. Its makers claim it is like a ‘tuning fork’, which when attached to the wrist uses ‘vibration frequency and resonance to deliver a calming signal to the brain’. Some experts, however, call it ‘pseudoscience’ and insist there are scarce amounts of evidence that it works.
Guy Leschziner, Professor of Neurology and Sleep Medicine at King’s College London, said: ‘It doesn’t look like they’ve actually proven anything. They may well prove us all wrong, but the burden of proof is on them.’
Meghan, 42, was seen near her home in Montecito, California, over the weekend wearing a NuCalm Biosignal Processing Disc.
Developed over more than 20 years by neuroscientist Dr Blake Holloway, NuCalm patches are just the latest in a long line of inventions from a company which has treated patients for conditions such as general anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The adhesive discs, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, are said to work by using biochemistry, physics and neurophysiology to relax the body and brain.
The Chicago Blackhawks ice hockey team is known to be NuCalm devotees to help recover after matches.
Another fan is US motivational speaker Tony Robbins. ‘When you’ve got Tony Robbins as your main proponent, that has to ring some alarm bells,’ Guy Leschziner told the Telegraph.
She was seen wearing a $4 anti-stress patch that ‘provides resonance and frequencies’ on her wrist as she left an appointment on Thursday
The Duchess of Sussex, 42, was without her husband Prince Harry, who is currently in south east Asia, as she walked through a parking lot with a bodyguard close to her side
The former Suits actress was seen wearing an anti-stress patch on her wrist from NuCalm. It is said to accelerate the onset of the relaxation response and costs $80 for a pack of 20
The discs have also been deemed effective at helping patients to enter a deeply meditative state by a co-director at a teaching hospital at Harvard Medical School. So how do they work?
According to the manufacturers, the NuCalm patches are like batteries.
Each contains a tiny Tesla coil – a type of electric circuit designed by inventor Nikola Tesla in 1891 – that emits waves which mimic the natural frequencies of neurotransmitters in the body, such as gamma-aminobutryic acid (GABA) and L-Theanine.
These are the body’s natural relaxation chemicals and normally when you are very stressed, your body resists them.
For something so small, the science is very complicated.
‘There is nothing simple about these discs,’ says Jim Poole, chief executive of NuCalm maker Solace Lifesciences. ‘We understood that we need to saturate the brain with GABA A and GABA B, the body’s primary inhibitory neurotransmitters – the opposite of adrenaline – to put the brakes on adrenaline.
‘It took Dr Holloway four years working with German physicists and Chinese medicine experts to locate the frequencies of these amino acids and what these discs now hold is the recipe.
‘They’re like a tuning fork, using vibration frequency and resonance to deliver a calming signal to the brain.’ Each patch has enough energy for two hours. No chemicals are released, only frequencies and biosignals.
Meghan was walking back from an appointment on Thursday cloaked in a coat and a scarf despite the 70 degree temperature
She accessorized her look with black-and-tan Chanel slingbacks worth around $1,150, a $450 belt from Givenchy and a white Goyard tote which costs $1,650
The Duchess of Sussex (pictured in May) reportedly attended Taylor Swift’s LA concert on Tuesday night
As Meghan showed, the discs should be put on an acupressure point on the left arm which, according to Chinese medicine, has a direct line (or meridian) to the sac containing your heart. Some people feel a little tingling but others don’t feel a thing.
The frequencies a patch emits are said to travel through the arm to the heart and brain, interrupting stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline, slowing your brainwave frequency and relaxing the mind and body.
Previous inventions from NuCalm include chewable supplements, skin creams, headphones playing relaxing music and light-blocking glasses. But NuCalm say the blue discs are the most effective and affordable invention yet.
They have no reported side-effects, need no medical supervision and are available in packs of 20 for £63 or packs of 100 for £315.
Dr Holloway, who died aged 73 in 2020 after a long illness, found an immediate market with dental patients when the system was unveiled in 2009.
On Tuesday, Meghan was spotted at one of Taylor Swift’s concerts at the SoFi stadium in LA.
She reportedly jumped out of her chair to sing along to the hit You Belong with Me but noticeably didn’t take a photo with the singer.
The former Suits actress was with her British friend Lucy Fraser, who featured prominently in the Sussexes’ tell-all Netflix series.
Although it is not known exactly where Meghan was reportedly situated in the stadium, she did not appear to be in the VIP tent – where Charlize Theron was happily filmed dancing along to some of the songs.
She enjoyed the girls’ night while Prince Harry, 38, spent time in Asia.
He enjoyed a two-day trip in Japan before flying to Singapore to play in a polo match on Saturday in aid of Sentebale, his charity set up to help children and young people in Lesotho in southern Africa.
Prince Harry and Nacho Figueras receive a shared trophy after the Sentebale ISPS Handa Polo Cup in Singapore
Prince Harry and his friend Nacho Figueras are pictured trying on sunglasses during a Tokyo shopping trip on Wednesday
Harry is without his wife Meghan and two children Archie, four, and Lilibet, two, for the trip and is accompanied by his polo player best friend Nacho Figueras.
It comes after the prince’s title of ‘His Royal Highness’ was quietly ditched by Buckingham Palace on the Royal Family’s website recently.
Under the terms of the 2020 Megxit agreement, the Palace said Harry and Meghan Markle could retain their HRH titles but would not be allowed to use them after stepping down as senior royals.
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