David had a bad habit of grinding his teeth. It was annoying to the people around him, and most importantly it is very bad for your teeth. “I’m a constant teeth grinder. It’s a very difficult habit to control because I do it so unconsciously.”
David was so excited to try the Pavlok that he became one of the prototype users. He’s been helping Pavlok perfect the product while working to break his own bad habits.
“There is nothing quite like the first shock that you receive. When I opened the envelope, of course I was very excited. It’s not that the shock is intense, you just don’t know what to expect and it surprises you.”
Pavlok’s 5 day, 5 minute protocol
For 5 days straight, shock yourself whenever you are doing the habit you wish to break, doing this at least 5 minutes a day. You can do the habit on purpose and shock yourself, or just shock yourself whenever you catch yourself doing it. After 5 days, you should notice an aversion to doing that action.
David used the 5 day, 5 minute protocol and he was able to completely stop grinding his teeth.
David noticed a big difference after the 5 days
Many users note that the most immediate effect of using Pavlok is that they become much more aware of their bad habit.
“The first day that I did it, I found that I was already much more aware of the issue. After 5 days, I would estimate that I reduced my teeth grinding by 80% That’s huge for me.”
You wake up to the alarm blaring, and you smash the snooze button.
Five minutes later, again the alarm, and again you hit the snooze button.
Sound a little too familiar?
For many people, waking up in the morning is difficult. For Rachman… it’s extremely difficult. Watch his video below where he talks about how he currently wakes up, and how he’s using Pavlok to change his bad habit.
[Transcript]
What’s up? This is Rachman Blake. I’m using Pavlok – oh yeah, right here – to break two bad habits that have been plaguing me for some time. So a little backstory, I am not much of a morning person, I can’t wake up really early. But, when I do wake up early, I’m extremely affected. What ends up happening is what you see right now. I stay up way too late and I start to get bags under my eyes because I don’t sleep enough.
One thing I wanna do is wake up at 7 o’clock. Every time I try to do that, I’ll just hit the snooze button on my iPhone and then go back to sleep. I’ve done a few things in the past. This is actually very funny – I’ve tried to create a micro habit of just getting out of the bed by 7AM. So to start it off, by just 7 o’clock I would just literally roll out of bed onto the floor. But then I just start sleeping on the floor uncomfortably for another 2 hours and then I would wake up with a —- ache in my back and have a —— day. So that’s it.
The second thing that I did was: I wake up and I would go to the bathroom but I didn’t have the need to pee, I just had to be out of the bed. So I’d wake up and then walk to the bathroom and then just sit on the toilet and then fall asleep. And then wake up like 2 hours later, you know, angry, my roommates were pissed off because I was in there and they thought I was masturbating or something like that.
Then Maneesh [Founder of Pavlok] recommended that instead of hitting the snooze button or doing any of this other weird stuff, that I just hit the Pavlok, which will shock me. And basically, that helps wake me up, one. And then two, it creates a negative association with hitting the snooze button, meaning like it’s; “The snooze button never ——- works anyway” That’s why they call it the snooze button, so you could snooze more. It’s not like get-out-of-bed button. Why would you put the snooze button in an alarm clock when it’s alarm clock it’s supposed to wake you up? Like snooze more! That doesn’t make any sense.
If you set the alarm clock to wake up, why would you hit a snooze button to sleep? It should be called the sleep-more-and-get-fired button cause that’s what’s gonna happen when you keep hitting that damn thing. Anyway, sorry, I didn’t mean to use my big voice.
Instead of hitting the sleep-more-eventually-get-fired-waste-your-life button, I hit the Pavlok, which is great because it create a negative association between the cue. The cue which is waking up – No, the cue is the – I need more sleep. Okay.
The cue…. —- Cue’s button in the routine is the “prooo”. No that’s the cue. You guys figure that out.
Anyway, so I do that, right? And it creates a negative association between hitting the snooze-get-fired button and negative association. So, I hit the cue button- the snooze button and I equate that with getting a shock. So if I’m still in bed, instead of hitting the snooze button when I hear my alarm go off, I keep hitting the Pavlok. And that was enough to just jolt me awake. Once I’m awake, I’m awake – I’m good.
Breaking the bad habit of oversleeping by instead of hitting the snooze-get-fired button, I instead hit the Pavlok, which creates a negative association from hitting the snooze button, which equates to more money. Somewhere down that line. Alright.
Nagina tried unsuccessfully for years to stop biting her nails.
In just two days, Pavlok helped her stop.
Watch her testimonial video, or read the transcript below.
[Transcript]
Hi, my name is Nagina and I am from New Jersey. I have had a problem with biting my nails, my entire life. I have tried everything to stop. I have bough that nail polish that tastes disgusting and you put it on and you bite it, it didn’t work. I have tried getting artificial nails and I bit them off. I was not finding the solution. So, I decided to try Pavlok and see if that would help me.
What I did is, I wore it for 2 days so far, and I shock myself every time I bite my nails. The minute I bit my nails, I shock myself. Within 2 days, I have already noticed that I am so much more aware of myself biting my nails, where there used to be very subconscious. Now, I am very aware, and I catch myself before I do it.
So, I am really looking forward to continue to wear a Pavlok and seeing my nails grow so that I can, you know, have normal hands and not feel embarrassed every time I am somewhere in public.
Simon smoked a half-pack of cigarettes every day for five years.
“I used to run for both pleasure and exercise. I would run half marathons, and it was very meditative for me. But when I started smoking cigarettes, my cardio really suffered”
He had tried quitting numerous times without success – until he discovered Pavlok.
“It’s empowering when you know you can tackle something as tough as cigarette smoking, it puts other difficult things into perspective. My family has a history of lung cancer, and I really felt ashamed that I was addicted to cigarettes. Using Pavlok took me from ‘it would be nice to quit’ to ‘I need to quit’ – and I did”.
Like many smokers, part of Simon’s habit was tied to ritual. “I would always have a cigarette after breakfast, and I would always have a cigarette at the end of the day after work, so those are the times I wanted to target first”.
He started by shocking himself at the same time he would be craving his morning cigarette. After two days, he progressed to shocking himself whenever he wanted a cigarette in the evening.
Over the course of one week Simon reduced his smoking habit by a few cigarettes each day, and after seven days he was no longer smoking cigarettes at all.
How Simon Saved Thousands of Dollars Per Year
Once Simon quit smoking and gained control of his cravings, he immediately began to notice an improvement in his health and relationships.
He started running again
His relationships with friends improved, because he was no longer irritable due to his cravings
He stopped wasting thousands of dollars a year on smoking
He felt a powerful sense of satisfaction
While Simon’s desire to smoke cigarettes was gone within days, his cravings for nicotine were still a challenge to overcome. In the weeks after he quit smoking completely, Pavlok continued to help Simon. “Pavlok helped train my brain to speak a little bit louder as I fought these cravings” said Simon, referring to his practice of shocking himself whenever he had a nicotine craving. “Recognizing the difference between the mental and physical aspects of the habit helped me feel more in control.”
Simon’s Advice For Others Hoping to Quit Using Pavlok
“To really want to quit is a fine line of being honest with yourself. Breaking through that veil is really crucial, because it is so easy to continue to rationalize. Once you’ve broken it, you look back and realize it was all shrouded by the dependency. For me it was just a little shock in my arm that helped to wake me up and really blow the smoke away from my cigarette habit”.
When asked if he thought the shock from Pavlok hurt, Simon really put things in perspective: “It doesn’t hurt, but it’s uncomfortable. But when you’re face-to-face with something that is important to you like quitting cigarettes, it totally outweighs the discomfort. If you can trade a little bit of discomfort for something that you know is killing you, that’s not a bad trade-off at all”.
