Anxiety can be a funny thing. 

Sometimes you’re feeling great and your mental and physical state is feeling more balanced than it has in days. But sometimes it hits you and while you’re not sure what entirely triggered it, you just don’t feel quite yourself. Your stomach is in knots. You feel a heavy weight in your chest. And when you feel into enough, you begin to feel queasy. 

My son and I both have these symptoms. While I have had years to deal with them and to figure out how to manage them, he hasn’t. When it hits his emotions get really big until he starts to cry or flops on the floor (which sometimes leads to injury).

When Reliefband offered us the opportunity to test their Reliefband Sport, we were interested. What if amongst the CBD and DHA and Magnesium there was something else that could help treat the symptoms in the moment.

RefliefBand is an innovator in wearable technology that prevents and treats nausea and vomiting systems. Their wearable devices generate a pulse that stimulates the median nerve which is located on the underside of the wrist. The pulse travels throughout the body’s nervous system to the place in the brain which controls nausea and vomiting. The pulse has a rebalancing effect which normalizes the nerve messages from the brain to the stomach and reduces the symptoms.

They recently released their new Reliefband Sport model. This is their first waterproof model that includes a flex fit comfort band. It’s battery can provide up to 30 hours of use on a full charge. It has several modes so that you can control the strength of the pulse on your median nerve. 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard my son complain about nausea when his anxiety has spiked. And for him, it’s debilitating. He freezes and freaks out, causing myself, as a parent, to freeze and freak out about how I can help him. And when he’s complained about nausea in the past, we don’t know, in the moment, if it is anxiety or sickness related and it’s caused him to miss school or activities.

With us being an active family, having to wrestle through his anxiety to get out the door for hikes, camping trips, or other outdoor activities has been challenging.

But the Reliefband Sport works.

For his first day of school, my son woke up complaining that he felt like he was going to throw up. I got the Reliefband Sport, but the conductivity gel on his wrist, strapped it on, and turned the pulse setting on it’s lowest setting. And he calmed down after a few minutes and his nausea went away.

Now, while Reliefband is a FDA-cleared treatment for nausea and vomiting symptoms, it is intended for adult usage (at least from a FDA standpoint). If the story about my son resonantes and you’re thinking about using this for your child, please talk to your pediatric doctor first.

I have to tip my hat to Showers Pass. Consistently, the products I am sent to test quickly become new favorites and their Wildwood Running Cap is no exception.

And let me be clear: I have a lot of hats. My wife reminds me of that fact constantly. So it takes a lot for a hat to make it to the top.

But I am beyond stocked that Showers Pass continues to expand its portfolio of running specific products.

It’s the perfect companion for trail runs with the wide brim for sun protection (UPF 50+), but also its material wicks away sweat and is incredibly light (only 2.5 ounces) and comfortable. The material is also incredibly breathable. This summer has been a scorcher and this hat has been a great companion on hotter days as I’m pulling out all stops to not overheat.

On the technical side, the style of the Wildwood Running Cap is a classic five-panel style. It sits lower on my head, unlike some of the other running hats that are a trucker style. It’s easy to adjust with a rear buckle strap. The material is a nylon/spandex construction, so it has some flexibility and stretch.

If you’re looking for a new running hat, look no further than Showers Pass.

BOA’s launch of the new H4 platform was a much needed upgrade from the previous single dial H-Series. A fan of Burton snowboard boots, I have owned H-Series Snowboarding boots for the last 5 years. I didn’t know that better performance and fit could be possible until I tested out the Burton Ion Boot with BOA’s new H4 dial platform. 

The combination of the new H4 dial platform and BOA’s first textile lace allows for a variety of fit configurations and is engineered for maximum shell adjustment and control. Featuring flexibility and style, the new lace maintains the classic designs of the snowboard industry. However, unlike standard laces or speed-lace, BOA has designed TX3 to be much smaller in diameter. This enables the laces to work within the BOA Fit System while still exceeding the necessary strength requirements for snowboard boots. 

The Burton Ion boot is one of the stiffest boots in the Burton line and as such, is not the perfect shoe for everyone. The boot transmits movement much faster than its soft counterparts, so if you are a novice rider who still has a few wobbles, then Ion will chew you up and spit you out.

With snowboard boots, it’s all about the fit. You might have the most expensive shoe in the world, but if it doesn’t fit, it just won’t work. The liner on this boot is fully heat molded with Ultralon Performance Foam, so out-of-the-box comfort increases the more you wear it. A Velcro strap on top locks the shin in the shoe, reducing chafing and  painful impacts to the shin. 

Previous snow boots never provided the fit I needed to have better performance on the mountain. The added combination of the BOA H4 Platform allowed me to lock in my heel and get a performance fit that I didn’t know I could have.  The real benefit of the H4 Dial  is the durability and fast installation, which makes getting on the mountain easier and adjusting obsolete.

H4 Benefits

Unprecedented Durability

BOA’s H4 Dial is the most durable and performance-driven dial platform to hit the mountain this season and was tested over 9,000 combined hours of  field and lab tests to get it ready for top performance. 

Performance Fit

The dual dial allows for the perfect fit in any condition, locking in your heel for top performance while snowboarding.

Fast Installation

The Breakaway design is engineered to defy force and can take a beating. The dial cartridge ejects on severe impact without damage and is easily reinserted back into the boot.

The H4 Dial Platform is a must for top performance, fit, and durability, and is my top choice for snowboarding boots. To Learn more about BOA’s H4 Dial Platform visit BOA or Burton for the ION Boot.

Smith recently sent us a pair of Squad Mag Goggles to test. They have  a large coverage lens and utilize Smith’s amazing PivLock technology. This innovative system enables  easy lens swaps. The particular lenses we used had contrast-enhancing, color-boosting ChromaPop™ technology that provided  elevated clarity and detail for alpine runs and tree stashes alike. 

A big reason why I loved these goggles was the clarity in the lens – so clear that it seemed like I wasn’t wearing goggles at all. The ChromaPop™ technology enhanced contrast and natural color to make details truly pop. Wearing these, I felt like I was seeing only through my own eyes which made my runs better, even later in the day when tree shadows appeared. 

The added AirEvac™ helmet integration along with 5X™ anti-fog inner lens helped keep them fog free through an entire day on the slopes. Before these goggles, I would use a fog free application before putting my goggles on to make sure they didn’t fog up. . Now I can hit the slopes without worrying about foggy goggles.

The fit was great and paired well with my Smith Helmet. Even though they came with a second lens to swap out for a nighttime run,  I never wanted to remove the ChromaPop Storm Rose Flash lens that came with the Goggles. 

If you do want to swap lenses, the Smith MAG™ lens change system uses magnets which makes doing so easy – even on a chair lift. 

At the end of the day, the Squad Mag Goggles with ChromaPop are amazing goggles that I can highly recommend. The fact that they come with a second lens for a broader range of light conditions helps make them a pair I’d recommend to anyone for any conditions.