nThe days of simply breathing in and out — or taking medication — to treat anxiety may soon be long gone, as tech companies seek to make devices that help to better relax people.

At the first ever Transformative Technology conference in Palo Alto this past weekend, companies with well-being devices like Spire, HeartMath, Somadome and the Sir Richard Branson-tested SleepStarter were on display.

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Nichol Bradford, executive director and co-founder of The Transformative Technology Lab at Sofia University where the conference took place, co-produced the conference and said that people are starting to acknowledge the mind/body connection.

“We have to design for the outcomes we want, not just productivity,” Bradford said.

I got a chance to try out some of the technologies on Friday. Here are some of my impressions and notes on the devices.

SleepStarter:
I was introduced to SleepStarter, a company with employees in the Bay Area and the U.K., by being asked if I wanted to be put to sleep.

Although I couldn’t fall asleep, the company’s app-controlled mask with headphones uses an algorithm of coordinated light and sound stimulation, and it made me very sleepy. I found it hard to sleep in a chair during the demo, though, and other booths around us created a lot of background noise.

For others in a more comfortable environment, it can guide the user to sleep in eight to 10 minutes. Part of the formula has been refined by EEG ( electroencephalogram) research. Professor Jess Ghannam of UCSF Medical School is helping with trials and future trial design as well.

English businessman Richard Branson used a prototype of the device to sleep while he was on his hot-air ballooning trip around the world, said Richard Hanbury, the company’s chief evangelist. Hanbury said he originally developed SleepStarter to save his own life after a car accident left him with chronic nerve damage pain.