THE SCIENCE BEHIND hūmNET
1
Helping other people is a measurable mental health intervention. Meta-analyses across large longitudinal cohorts show that altruistic behavior reduces mortality risk by 22%, significantly decreases depression and anxiety, and activates the brain’s reward pathways more effectively than receiving help. fMRI research from the University of Oregon demonstrates that giving activates the nucleus accumbens – the same reward center triggered by food and pleasure. Georgetown University research on altruistic individuals found measurable structural differences in the brain and enhanced reward system activation when making generous decisions. Four neurotransmitter systems are involved: oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins.
The optimal “dose” appears to be about two hours per week of other-oriented helping behavior, based on longitudinal studies tracking tens of thousands of participants.
We’re not prescribing two hours. We’re exploring what happens in three minutes.
2
In a landmark study, Coan, Schaefer, and Davidson (2006) put participants through a painful experience while scanning their brains with fMRI. In some trials, participants were alone. In others, a supportive friend was present and held their hand. Simply having a supportive person present reduced both the reported pain and the activity in brain regions associated with stress response – specifically the anterior cingulate cortex and the insula.
The person did not need to speak. They did not need to solve anything. They just needed to be there.
This is the neurological basis for what hūmNET is designed to create: the felt sense that others have shown up.
3
When people focus together – on the same phrase, the same moment, the same need – their physiological states begin to align. Research by Ruth Feldman and others in social neuroscience demonstrates that shared physiological states during social interactions create a biological foundation for empathy and mutual support. This is not metaphor. It is measurable neural and hormonal coordination.
This is what a humn is designed to create: a brief window of shared focus that produces real physiological resonance across distance.
4
Object constancy is a concept from developmental psychology describing the ability to maintain a felt sense of connection to another person even when they are not physically present. Extended into interpersonal neurobiology, it describes how a securely connected person can draw on the internalized presence of others to regulate their nervous system – even in those people’s absence.
humns operationalize this directly. The presence visualizer – glowing beacons on a live map, each one a real person who chose to show up – is not a visual flourish. It is a mechanism for creating a felt and visible record of presence. You can see that others are here. You can return to that knowledge. That is object constancy, delivered in real time, across any distance.
5
Dan Siegel’s framework of interpersonal neurobiology describes how the nervous system is shaped through relationship – how co-regulation between people is not a psychological concept but a neurological one. When one person’s nervous system is in distress, the presence of a regulated other can shift it. This is the physiological basis for what we colloquially call feeling held.
hūmNET’s combination of focus phrase, therapeutic sound, and haptic feedback is designed to support the grounded, present state that enables co-regulation to occur – even among people who are miles apart.
6
First defined by ethicist Andrew Jameton in 1984, moral distress occurs when a person knows the right action but is constrained from taking it. For healthcare workers, this plays out daily – in understaffed shifts, in compromised care decisions, in the gap between the care they want to give and what the system allows. Research distinguishes moral distress from moral injury, and emerging work on what researchers call moral thriving and moral resilience suggests the spectrum extends in the other direction, too.
hūmNET was designed around a specific hypothesis: that showing up for a colleague in distress, even for three minutes, may function as a micro-dose of altruism that offsets moral distress by restoring a momentary sense of purpose. We are testing this. We have early encouraging data. We are not claiming it is proven.
7
Over 30 controlled trials have demonstrated that group-based mindfulness and stress reduction programs are effective for healthcare workers, with moderate to large effect sizes for stress reduction. Critically, synchronous group formats show meaningfully lower dropout rates than asynchronous approaches – 28% versus 45% in landmark comparisons. Research comparing meditation environments found that practicing in the perceived presence of others increases social connectivity and deepens the experience more than solo practice.
humns are synchronous by design. That is not a product choice. It is a research-informed choice.
8
The body registers safety before the mind does. This is the foundation of somatic approaches to nervous system regulation – work like Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing and Stephen Porges’s polyvagal theory, which show that the body reads cues of safety or threat at a level beneath conscious thought, and that regulating the body is often a faster path to calm than reasoning with the mind.
hūmNET’s design draws on this tradition in three ways.
The haptic element – a phone vibrating gently against the body – is a sensory signal of presence that registers before the mind has processed anything. Research on therapeutic vibration shows measurable effects on anxiety and nervous system regulation.
The sound element works the same way. Meta-analyses on sound-based interventions show efficacy in reducing anxiety and fear responses.
And during the focus phrase, a glowing circle orbits the words, and participants are invited to trace it with a thumb. This pairs visual attention with physical movement. Mindfulness research shows that attention training measurably improves the brain’s ability to hold focus and resist distraction. A moving visual anchor, tracked by the body rather than just observed, gives the mind less room to wander than words on a still screen.
None of these elements work by persuading the mind. They work by giving the body something to do and something to feel – together.
Clarity matters as much as the science itself.
Not therapy
hūmNET is not a substitute for mental health treatment, crisis intervention, or clinical care. A humn does not replace a therapist, a peer counselor, or a human conversation.
Not a social network
There is no feed, no likes, no follower count, no content to consume.
Not a meditation app
The experience is brief and relational – oriented outward, toward others who are present, not inward toward a solo practice.
Not a chatbot
There is no AI in the experience itself. What you feel during a humn is other people.
hūmNET’s specific combination of these elements – synchronous shared presence, haptic feedback, therapeutic sound, and a community focus phrase, delivered in under five minutes – has not been the subject of a controlled clinical trial. We have run early pilots with healthcare workers and people in recovery. The results are encouraging: 94% positive response, and an average 36-point improvement in self-reported wellbeing immediately after the experience.
We are transparent about the gap between the individual research traditions we draw from and the evidence specific to hūmNET as a combined intervention. We believe the former is strong enough to warrant building. We know the latter still needs to be established.
That work is underway.
28 peer-reviewed sources, foundational books, and clinical frameworks. Titles link to source papers.
1.
Jenkinson et al. (2013). Is volunteering a public health intervention? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the health and survival of volunteers. BMC Public Health.
2.
Harbaugh, Mayr & Burghart (2007). Neural Responses to Taxation and Voluntary Giving Reveal Motives for Charitable Donations. Science.
3.
Marsh et al. (2014). Neural and cognitive characteristics of extraordinary altruists. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
4.
Kim et al. (2020). Volunteering and Subsequent Health and Well-Being in Older Adults: An Outcome-Wide Longitudinal Approach. American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
5.
Coan, Schaefer & Davidson (2006). Lending a Hand: Social Regulation of the Neural Response to Threat. Psychological Science.
6.
Master et al. (2009). A Picture’s Worth: Partner Photographs Reduce Experimentally Induced Pain. Psychological Science.
7.
Eisenberger & Lieberman (2004). Why Rejection Hurts: A Common Neural Alarm System for Physical and Social Pain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
8.
Feldman (2012). Parent–Infant Synchrony: A Biobehavioral Model of Mutual Influences in the Formation of Affiliative Bonds. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.
9.
Feldman (2017). The Neurobiology of Human Attachments. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
10.
Mahler, Pine & Bergman (1975). The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant: Symbiosis and Individuation. Basic Books.
11.
Schore (1994/2015). Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development. Routledge.
12.
Siegel (2006). An Interpersonal Neurobiology Approach to Psychotherapy. Psychiatric Annals.
13.
Porges (2015). The Science of Coregulation: Biopsychological Foundations of Meaningful Clinical Connection. Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology.
14.
Jameton (1984). Nursing Practice: The Ethical Issues. Prentice-Hall.
15.
Rushton (2016). Moral Resilience: A Capacity for Navigating Moral Distress in Critical Care. AACN Advanced Critical Care.
16.
Spinelli et al. (2019). Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Healthcare Professionals: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Mindfulness.
17.
Deady et al. (2017). eHealth Interventions for the Prevention of Depression and Anxiety in the General Population: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JMIR Mental Health.
18.
Linnemann et al. (2024). Effects of Sound Interventions on the Mental Stress Response in Adults: Scoping Review. U.S. National Library of Medicine (PMC).
19.
Lunde et al. (2024). Effects of Vibroacoustic Stimulation on Psychological, Physiological, and Cognitive Stress. Frontiers in Psychology / PMC.
20.
ANA Professional Issues Panel on Moral Resilience (Rushton, C.H., co-chair) (2017). A Call to Action: Exploring Moral Resilience Toward a Culture of Ethical Practice. American Nurses Association.
21.
Buchbinder, Browne, Berlinger, Jenkins & Buchbinder (2023). Moral Stress and Moral Distress: Confronting Challenges in Healthcare Systems under Pressure. The American Journal of Bioethics.
22.
Mortlock, Carter & Querstret (2022). Extending the Transformative Potential of Mindfulness Through Team Mindfulness Training, Integrating Individual With Collective Mindfulness, in a High-Stress Military Setting. Frontiers in Psychology.
23.
Spreng et al. (2020). The default network of the human brain is associated with perceived social isolation. Nature Communications.
24.
Wang, Luo, Zang, Ma & Yang (2024). Impact of social reward on stress circuit function and regulation: path differences between value affirmation and emotional support. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology.
25.
Porges (2004). Neuroception: A subconscious system for detecting threats and safety. Zero to Three: Bulletin of the National Center for Clinical Infant Programs, 24(5), 19–24.
26.
Payne, Levine & Crane-Godreau (2015). Somatic experiencing: using interoception and proprioception as core elements of trauma therapy. Frontiers in Psychology, 6:93.
27.
Tang, Hölzel & Posner (2015). The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16(4), 213–225.
28.
Westling, Reeves & Nelson (2025). Moral Distress in Healthcare Organizations: Detection, Mitigation, and Prevention. Journal of Hospital Ethics, 11(3).