The Problem

Over the past two years, the roster of my class has dwindled as more kids take time off for mental health issues. As I scroll through my news feed, every few months I see a teen tribute post for someone my age who has taken their life. The National Institute for Mental Health details 31.9% of adolescents have experienced an anxiety disorder. The Covid-19 pandemic brought about isolation, family tension, and other stressors which contributed immensely to the poor mental health of adolescents; the CDC reports that 37% of high school students surveyed experienced poor mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic. I and many of my friends - still have residual anxiety from the abrupt changes that forced us all into isolation. I missed my grandmother’s funeral during May 2020 as only a limited number of adults were permitted to attend and I still have anxiety around attending funerals as I think of my grandmother. As stress and anxiety rise amongst adolescents, only around 9% of those affected receive treatment. Treatment options vary, but often include specialists and doctors that can be inaccessible for many families. Even then, drugs usually prescribed for these disorders can be expensive and have negative side effects. I am motivated to tackle the mental health crisis that is greatly affecting my generation with my invention RestVest.

Your Solution

My solution to help combat the stress and anxiety that affects the mental health of my generation is my invention “RestVest” and my founding of a related start-up with a mission focused on teen mental health and well-being (www.rest-vest.com). RestVest is a weighted vest that uses deep pressure therapy to calm the nervous system and provide relief to the user much like a weighted blanket. Many kids and teens use weighted blankets at night for their calming effects and I wanted to invent a product that kids could wear during the day without stigma. Existing weighted vests in the marketplace look like bulky and obvious medical devices. I wanted to design a weighted vest that looks like an everyday piece of clothing and provides stress and anxiety relief to the user in a discreet manner. In designing the vest, I settled on channels of beads that evenly distribute the weight to the user in a garment that appears like an everyday down vest. My solution is unique and this year I received a published patent for the design of the RestVest. RestVest has the potential to help millions suffering from stress and anxiety.

Founding Story

The idea for RestVest came to me after I started using a weighted blanket at night to help me calm down after a stressful or anxiety-filled day at school. What if I could take my weighted blanket to school so I could reap the benefits of deep pressure therapy during the day? I began to develop the RestVest as a part of a Young Entrepreneurs Academy course. I saw the potential for success when I created a prototype and had focus-groups with positive results: people felt less stressed and less anxious after wearing RestVest. I had enough interest to place and fill orders!

Your Impact

This fall I am working under the mentorship of Dr. Hoffman and Dr. Defrance at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence (“YCEI”) to conduct research measuring the effectiveness of RestVest through various modalities. My research centers on whether wearing a RestVest can reduce the stress and anxiety that a subject may feel while performing tasks such as test taking, scrolling through social media, public speaking, and attending social gatherings. Through my research, I will collect additional supporting data to determine how RestVest can be best used in school settings to help manage teen stress and anxiety. My goal is to have RestVests available at a “Mental Health” break station in my school this year and expand the stations to five area schools next year and have stations in every school in my state by the time I graduate in 2025. I was invited to speak at a YCEI RULER mental health education conference this spring as one of three teen panelists. I received a great deal of interest from educators who wanted more information on my study and a school district in New Jersey placed my first district-level order and will now be a testing center for my research.

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