Bridging Mind and Body for Enhanced Resilience in High-Stress Environments

In an era where mental and physical resilience are increasingly critical, particularly for those operating in demanding and high-stress environments, a pioneering Dutch deep-tech company is harnessing the power of touch to unlock human potential. Touchwaves, a spin-off from the renowned TNO at Holst Centre, is at the forefront of developing “intelligent textiles” that utilize haptic technology and bio-monitoring to optimize performance, reduce stress, and improve overall well-being. While their core technology, embodied in the “MYSA” shirt, is making significant strides in mental health, its profound implications for the defense and security sectors are becoming increasingly clear.

From Scientific Research to Tactile Innovation

The story of Touchwaves begins within the scientific laboratories of TNO (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research) and Holst Centre, a world-leading open innovation R&D center for flexible electronics and sensor technologies. For years, researchers explored the potential of integrating advanced electronics directly into textiles, moving beyond rigid, bulky devices towards comfortable, wearable solutions. This extensive research laid the groundwork for Touchwaves’ patented haptic technology.

What truly set the foundation for Touchwaves, however, was a deeply personal realization among its founders. Charlotte Kjellander (PhD Materials Science and former Head of Wearables at TNO), Martin Romero (Tech Entrepreneur), and Pauline van Dongen (PhD Fashion Design) all experienced firsthand the transformative power of breathwork and body awareness in managing their own personal challenges, from chronic headaches to anxiety and hyperventilation. They recognized a fundamental disconnect in modern life: despite an abundance of information, many individuals had lost their innate “mind-body connection” – the intuitive understanding of how physical sensations influence emotional and mental states.

This profound insight, coupled with their expertise in deep tech and smart textiles, led to the formation of Touchwaves in January 2023. Their mission was clear: to combine high-tech innovation with a “high-touch” approach, making the scientifically proven benefits of breathwork accessible and intuitive through wearable technology. Their flagship product, the MYSA shirt, was born from this vision, initially targeting young women struggling with anxiety. However, the inherent capabilities of their technology quickly revealed broader applications, particularly for professionals in high-stress occupations, including defense.

FeelMySA: The Core Technology of Embodied Companionship

The MYSA shirt, under the consumer brand FeelMySA, is the prime example of Touchwaves’ core technology. This smart, base-layer garment discreetly integrates small, flexible vibrating motors with washable and stretchable printed circuitry. Unlike apps or smartwatches that provide visual or auditory cues, the MYSA shirt delivers tactile feedback directly to the body.

Here’s how it works:

• Haptic Guidance: The embedded vibration motors mimic clinically proven breathing patterns for relaxation, focus, or continuous energy. Users literally feel the rhythm of optimal breathing on their bodies, intuitively guiding them towards slower, deeper, and more controlled respiration. This “waves of touch” sensation helps users shift their attention from overthinking (“getting out of their head”) and reconnect with their physical self (“getting into their body”).
• Mind-Body Connection: By fostering this direct bodily awareness, the shirt helps users regulate their nervous system, reduce stress, manage anxiety, and improve overall physiological and psychological well-being.
• Discreet and Hands-Free: The MYSA shirt is designed to be worn comfortably underneath regular clothing, making it discreet and available anytime, anywhere. This hands-free, screen-free approach allows for seamless integration into daily life, providing support without disruption.
• Customization: While offering pre-programmed patterns, the accompanying easy-to-use app allows for personalized settings, enabling users to adjust vibration intensity levels and breathing rates to suit their individual needs and specific therapeutic goals.
• Next-Generation Capabilities: Touchwaves is already working on a “closed-loop smart shirt.” This advanced version will combine haptic breathing guidance with integrated sensors that provide real-time bio-monitoring data (e.g., heart rate variability, respiration rate). This sensor input will intelligently inform the vibration motors, allowing the shirt to automatically detect stress or anxiety responses and guide the wearer to an appropriate breathing pattern in real-time. This proactive, adaptive system represents a significant leap forward in personalized resilience support.

Beyond Anxiety: The Defense and Security Nexus

While the FeelMySA brand is currently focused on the civilian market for anxiety relief, Touchwaves’ underlying technology has immense potential and is actively being explored and validated for professional applications, particularly within the defense and security sectors. The core benefits – enhanced focus, improved mental resilience, stress reduction, and optimized physiological performance – are directly transferable and critically relevant to military personnel, first responders, and individuals in high-stakes operational environments.

Key defense applications include:

• Hypoxia Management in Pilots: One of the most compelling applications being validated is the use of haptic guidance to address hypoxia (oxygen deficiency) in pilots. Touchwaves has collaborated with the Royal Netherlands Air Force, with scientific publications already validating their technology’s efficacy in optimizing oxygen uptake. In high-altitude flight or combat maneuvers, subtle physiological changes can lead to hypoxia, impairing cognitive function and decision-making. A haptic shirt could provide real-time, intuitive feedback to pilots, guiding their breathing to ensure optimal oxygenation, thus maintaining peak performance and safety.
• Stress and PTSD Resilience for Military Personnel: Military operations inherently involve extreme stress, trauma, and sustained high-pressure situations, leading to conditions like anxiety, hyperventilation, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Touchwaves’ technology can offer a continuous, non-pharmacological, and discreet tool for military personnel to self-regulate their physiological responses to stress. By guiding breathing patterns, the shirt can help individuals remain calm, focused, and present, both during operations and in their recovery, potentially mitigating the long-term impact of chronic stress and trauma.
• Enhanced Focus and Performance: For soldiers, special forces operators, and other defense professionals, maintaining optimal cognitive function and physical control under duress is paramount. The MYSA-type shirt could be used for pre-mission preparation, helping individuals achieve a state of heightened focus and calm. During active operations, subtle haptic cues could aid in maintaining composure, improving decision-making, and enhancing performance in critical moments.
• Training and Simulation: The technology could be integrated into military training programs, particularly in high-fidelity simulations. Haptic feedback could provide real-time physiological guidance during stressful training scenarios, helping trainees develop better self-regulation skills and stress inoculation.
• Sleep Optimization and Recovery: Adequate sleep and recovery are vital for military readiness. The calming effects of haptic-guided breathwork could assist personnel in achieving better sleep, contributing to improved physical and mental recovery, particularly in demanding deployment cycles.
• Discreet Bio-Monitoring for Health and Readiness: The future closed-loop smart shirt, with its integrated sensors, could provide discreet bio-monitoring capabilities for military health and readiness assessments. By tracking physiological indicators and guiding interventions, it could help commanders monitor the well-being of their personnel and intervene proactively when stress levels become critical.

Funding and Validation: A Strong Foundation

Touchwaves is a deep-tech spin-off from TNO at Holst Centre, which provides a strong scientific and technological foundation. They are part of the imec.istart accelerator program and have received funding from imec.istart future fund and NWO Take-off. As of late 2024, they were actively fundraising with a target of €550,000, with €200,000 already committed. This financial backing, coupled with their strong scientific heritage, underpins their ambitious development roadmap.

Crucially, their work is not confined to laboratory settings. Small-scale prototypes of their shirt have undergone successful trials with approximately 80 clinical professionals, therapists, and users, yielding promising results in anxiety management. Furthermore, their collaboration with the Royal Netherlands Air Force for validating hypoxia management in pilots demonstrates a concrete commitment to real-world defense applications.

The Team: A Blend of Science, Design, and Entrepreneurship

The strength of Touchwaves lies in its multidisciplinary founding team:

• Charlotte Kjellander (PhD Materials Science): With a deep background in wearable electronics and a personal passion for body awareness stemming from her own health journey, Charlotte brings the core scientific and technical expertise to the company.
• Martin Romero (Tech Entrepreneur): Martin provides the entrepreneurial drive and business development acumen, translating cutting-edge research into viable products and market strategies.
• Pauline van Dongen (PhD Fashion Design): Pauline ensures that the technology is seamlessly integrated into comfortable, aesthetically pleasing, and highly functional textile products. Her expertise in fashion design is crucial for creating wearables that users will want to wear regularly and that fit discreetly into their lives.

This unique combination of scientific rigor, design excellence, and business acumen positions Touchwaves to not only innovate but also to successfully commercialize their groundbreaking technology.

A Future Woven into Fabric: Impact and Horizons

Touchwaves is on the cusp of bringing a truly innovative product to market. The MYSA shirt, planned for a full launch in 2025, represents the first wave of their intelligent textile solutions. The company envisions a future where “Body Intelligence” is widely recognized as a key component of overall health and resilience.

For the defense sector, Touchwaves offers a transformative capability. In an environment where the human element remains central to operational success, providing tools that enhance the mental and physical well-being of personnel is not just a welfare consideration, but a strategic imperative. The ability to passively guide breathing for stress reduction, improve focus, and even prevent physiological compromise like hypoxia, all through a discreet, wearable garment, represents a significant leap forward in optimizing human performance in the most demanding contexts.

As the complexities of modern warfare and high-stakes operations continue to grow, the need for advanced, human-centric solutions will only intensify. Touchwaves, with its innovative haptic technology and a clear focus on enhancing embodied companionship for resilience, is poised to play a crucial role in empowering individuals to thrive, even in the most challenging of environments. Their story is one of science meeting intuition, and technology touching lives – a powerful narrative for the future of defense and human performance.