Shahid Akhter, editor, ETHealthworld, spoke to Nimrod Mon Brokman, Co-Founder, Behavioural Foresight, Partner at PHD (Potential Health Development) and Consultant for Indo-Israel Commerce, to find out about their approach to improving mental health by using innovative techniques.

Your views on 'Mental Health' in India I arrived in India in 2016 and started familiarizing myself with the mental health sector in Bangalore. In India, every region, and every place, is different, and there is a taboo around mental health issues. When we approached clients, they would often feel awkward and uncomfortable. Their reactions ranged from, What are you saying? Why are you speaking like that? Why are you classifying me like that?.

It took us around 2 years to build a relationship of trust with our clients regarding mental health, to make them understand that it's not a disorder that we are talking about, but rather a performance issue. When I say performance, it can be athletic, it can be at an executive level or even in our day-to-day lives how you live your life, how you conduct yourself from morning to evening - such things are by themselves contributing to your performance.

What are the risks with long term stress? Stress is a big factor in todays world. You can look at the statistics, although it often reflects as heart issue, since it's actually stress that affects the heart, causing many problems. In diabetes too, the main factor is stress or unregulated emotions. As part of the ecosystem of Connect Ventures, we decided to incorporate mental health with physical health and nutrition, to bring about a holistic solution.

We are working with different corporations on extremely innovative programs to support their employees and leaders, by bringing together Israeli technology with innovative protocols. These programs do not stop them from following their individual routines but enable them to continue with their lifestyle while improving on it. Our experience across different sectors over the years finally led to the development of EZUN - an experiential mind-simulated training, combining Israeli tech, gamification and science. Our mission is to power for excellence, by utilising minimum mental capacity for maximum mental performance through impactful gamification and fun protocols.

We are also working with the Indian military to give them the x-factor to perform and operate in the most challenging environments, in the most efficient manner.

Can gaming be beneficial and healthy for better mental capacity? After almost 4 years in India, we had gathered significant learnings from the Indian market and applied it to the way we functioned. We wanted to enable more people to enjoy our process through a lighter approach. Thats when we realised that it was important to gamify the whole process. The moment you play, you enjoy and have fun. Automatically there is less judgement, less restriction, less resistance, and thereby, way more neuroplasticity (mental adaptation). At the same time, we wanted to make it more scientific, and related to data so we had evidence that our methods were providing value to our clients.

This is how we came up with our simulation room, Ezun. Ezun in Hebrew means fundamental balance, where we train one to be able to stay constantly in balance. Balance is not stagnancy. It keeps on changing and one should be able to re-balance themselves and maintain this balance constantly during the day. This is what we have developed with EZUN. Each experiential training protocol has been designed to fit perfectly to EZUN state-of-the-art simulation training by our experts. We aim to enhance a sustainable learning experience of down and up regulation of somatic sensations and behaviours, to master the highest levels of economy over ones personal mental currency.

We have Israeli technology that allows one to assess how their physiology reacts to different stressors. Along with this stress profiling, we also use respiratory assessment to understand how the breathing functions. This is a very critical tool to change ones state of mind, as well as to observe and evaluate someone. We are also using a test to measure cortisol levels. These 3 parameters give us a stress profile to understand how someone is functioning physiologically in the day to day, and how they react naturally. With this baseline, we curate different programs. With all the programs, the person just plays computer and action games, while the data gets accumulated constantly from their physiology. Connecting these two, we can see how one functions, with the goal being, how efficiently can one function. Again, what is the economics of their behaviour, can they be efficient and spend very little to gain a lot, or are they wasting and spending a lot to gain very little.

Your vision to democratize Behavioural Foresight innovations? We are collaborating with our food division to understand how everyone can gain from the right gut and brain function. We are extending our services to educational institutes, as well as corporates and their workforce to enjoy EZUN training and our food at their facilities on the go. They can do this without changing their lifestyles, and without having to ignore their work to focus on their health. With just small changes and micro adjustments, we can create a huge impact on their day to day living.

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We are validating old knowledge with new technology to enhance mental performance:Nimrod Mon Brokman, Behavi.. - ETHealthWorld