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We’ve been relieving stress with wellness tech for years — here are our top choices to give to loved ones in need of a little stress relief.

We could all use a little stress relief. That’s why this holiday season, we’re aiming to gift holistic, wellness-forward presents to our loved ones — whether the gifts are experience-based, like spending time together or gifting tickets, vacations, or spa treatments, or whether we’re spoiling our loved ones with the latest in wellness tech.

We test out tons of wellness products at The Good Trade and at Good Gear. Below, you’ll find our top ten picks for stress-relieving wellness tech that’s popular right now — and that actually works. Whether you’re shopping for your bestie who’s overwhelmed at work, an aging parent, a new mom, or your fit, triathlon-running friend, you’ll get ideas for everyone on your list below.

Why give the gift of stress relief?

Stress-relieving gifts go beyond the thoughtful gesture of gifting an item that your loved one will appreciate — instead, you’re giving the gift of wellness and better mental (and sometimes physical) health. When you give the gift of stress relief, you’re giving both an item they can use again and again, along with an experience — and here at The Good Trade we love prioritizing experiences over physical objects. By gently encouraging your loved ones to relieve stress, you’re setting them up for long-term success.

For all of your holiday shopping needs, check out our other guides — to the best sleep gifts, the best sustainable gifts under $50, and experience gifts for minimalists.

1. Chilltherapy
Best For | The Athlete

Chilltherapy is not your standard bag of peas. In fact, it’s not a typical ice pack at all — it’s a soft, flexible, silicone pouch filled with a vegan gel, making for a pliable ice pack for any aches, pains, or migraines. It comes in three different sizes, each of which molds to your body, whether you’re using the largest size for a leg or back muscle, or the smallest size for your eyes, neck, or other places a traditional ice pack can’t really get to effectively. (Another perfect use for the smallest size? Kids! Our editor’s daughter uses one for all her scrapes, bumps, and bruises and says she likes it because it’s “her size.” 🥹)

Each pack has two sides — a wave side for a gentler cool and a smooth side for a more intense coldness. And, engineered by a Stanford scientist, the vegan gel inside won’t get freezer burner, so you can use the Chilltherapy packs in perpetuity. They even make a cooling eye mask, too — perfect for a gift!

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A person sitting on a pink exercise ball holds a round, translucent “chilltherapy” cold pack against their knee.
A person lying down with a clear gel eye mask on their face while someone’s hands gently touch their cheeks.

2. Higher Dose Sauna Blanket
Best For | The Protocol Lover

Bring the power of an infrared sauna into your home with Higher Dose’s Infrared Sauna Blanket. Shaped like a sleeping bag, it’s super easy to use: just plug it in, slip inside, and get your sweat on for 15 to 40 minutes. Unlike traditional saunas, which heat the air to high temperatures, infrared saunas use infrared rays to heat your body without heating the air around it — similar to the way sunlight feels warm on your skin (though infrared saunas don’t have harmful UV rays).

The blanket comes with an organic cotton towel insert so you can sweat freely with easy cleanup. Because it’s easy to use from the comfort of your home, it makes fitting sauna sessions into your routine a breeze — use it on recovery days to elevate your heart rate and boost circulation, or after workouts to ease muscle soreness, flush lactic acid, and relax. Check out our editor’s review for more details!

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A person with sweaty skin lying down outdoors.
A woman sitting on the floor, wrapped in a black towel, next to a black sauna blanket.

3. Canopy
Best For | The Candle Lover

Canopy makes electronic home wellness products like humidifiers, water filters, and air purifiers. But one of their standout stress relief products that makes for a fantastic gift is their Aroma Subscription. The gift recurs every 45 days with a new delivery of the brand’s Sanctuary Aroma Kit, which includes two bottles of scent: one “freshwater rose” and one “blackberry vines.” It comes with your choice of aroma stones, which go into the brand’s humidifiers, or felt diffusors, which go into their showerheads and air purifiers. Best of all, Canopy’s aromatherapy products are made with pure essential oils, free of parabens, phthalates, and synthetic dyes, diffusing fresh, relaxing scent that you can feel good about.

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A hand places a small light blue puck onto a white Sanctuary humidifier near several boxed fragrance refills.

4. Moonbird
Best For | The Meditation Enthusiast

Moonbird helps you elevate your meditations with breathwork. While there are plenty of meditation and breathwork apps, this is a screen-free breathwork coach that helps you breathe at the pace that’s right for your own body, not just a standard average rate. The small handheld device has a heart rate sensor and tactile breathing guidance — over the first few weeks of use it’ll determine your best personal rate for breathwork sessions. You’ll receive insights on every session, and it integrates with wearables like Oura ring or Apple watch. Use it to calm your nervous system first thing in the morning to start the day off on the right foot, or to wind down before bed — and even get a sleep prediction for that night. (Psst they also have a kid’s version called a moonbuddy!)

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Hands holding a smartphone displaying a breathing exercise app next to a teal handheld wellness device.
A person holding a smartphone in one hand and a small, smooth, light blue object in the other.

5. Primally Pure Serenity Soaks
Best For | The Bath Taker

Primally Pure makes skincare, bodycare, and home products that are as chic as they are holistic, making their products fantastic for gifting — they’re equally great for people who are into clean beauty and people who like beautiful products on their bathroom shelf. We especially love Primally Pure’s Serenity Soaks, bath pucks that dissolve into your bath for a more hydrating, aromatherapeutic experience. The pucks are made with skin softening cocoa butter, colloidal oatmeal, and kaolin clay, and they have a gentle, calming scent — with no artificial fragrance or colors. And they fizz effervescently (and satisfyingly) when placed in the bath.

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A hand holding a stack of three white, round bath bombs.
A container of Primally Pure Serenity Soaks, two bath pucks, a lit candle, and an open book on a bathtub tray.

6. Sensate
Best For | The Overachiever

Sensate is a vagus nerve calming device that helps you turn down your nervous system and slip into a meditative state in just 10 minutes — the device is meant to give you better sleep quality and stress resilience over time. Just place the small, pear-shaped device on your chest and press the play button, focusing on the gentle vibrations and immersive sound to calm your vagus nerve system, which carries signals between your brain, heart, and digestive system. The Sensate connects to an app on your phone through which you can play audio, so you’ll have soundscapes through your headphones and infrasound through your breastbone — both frequencies are engineered to work together. In a study, Sensate users fell asleep 50% faster and slept for 55 more minutes on average, and reached a meditative state similar to long-term meditators in just 10 minutes.

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A person wearing wireless earbuds and a small, black, oval-shaped device on their chest, with a “TIME Best Inventions” badge in the corner.
A smartphone displaying a nature soundscape app stands next to a black, egg-shaped electronic device with a glowing blue circular light on a circular pedestal.

7. Solawave
Best For | The Beauty Guru

For the person who’s religious about their skincare regimen, a red light therapy mask is a must-have investment. Research shows that the high-tech red light therapy masks work to repair skin, support firmness, and reduce redness, but they need to be used consistently for noticeable results. Our favorite red light therapy mask is the Solawave, which our editor recently tested over the course of six months, and she was impressed by the results. “I can tell that there’s been a gentle improvement to both my skin’s tone and texture  —  especially in the thinner skin around my eyes. I can even see a softening in my smile and forehead lines, too, which I wasn’t really expecting,” she says. Solawave masks are made of a soft silicone with comfortable straps so they’re easy to wear for the three-minute recommended nightly sessions, and their rechargeable batteries hold around 20 uses.

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A person wearing a purple Solawave LED light therapy face mask.
Solawave light therapy face mask emitting a red glow, connected to a handheld remote controller.

8. Light Phone
Best For | The Tech Critic

The Light Phone aims to solve the problems our smartphones have slowly but insidiously added into our lives — the constant scrolling, the anxiety, the loss of connection with the real world. With a small, sleek design, the Light Phone helps you lighten your tech load. It gives you just the tools you need (and choose), like text, call, maps, calendar, music, and an alarm. Our editor tested out the Light Phone and enjoyed how simple the interface was, how it integrated easily into her life, and how it reduced eye strain. And, as long as your current smartphone has a compatible SIM card, you don’t necessarily have to give up your smartphone altogether — you can switch out SIMs and use the Light Phone as a secondary phone, on days when you want to be more present.

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A black rectangular digital device with a screen displaying a vertical list of menu options: Phone, Alarm, Directions, Music, Notes, and Calendar.
A hand holding a rectangular, minimalist smartphone displaying a navigation app.

9. Tend 
Best For | The Traveler

The Tend Focus is a compact, handheld massage tool that helps give you targeted muscle relief from anywhere. Pocket-sized and portable, the device is easy to bring with you anywhere and use on the go. It uses Focal Vibration Therapy (FVT) with a precision tip for focused muscle relief and recovery — helping to break up knots and access small muscles and fascia. It helps to boost blood flow and enhance mobility, speeding up your body’s own natural healing process during post-exercise recovery. Our editor recently tested the Tend and loved how portable and easy to incorporate into her routine it was. “After long days walking in the city or slipping into heels, I’d run the Focus for 2–5 minutes per foot. The payoff was clear: less stiffness getting out of bed, easier first steps, and fewer moments of ‘my feet are killing me’ after a long day.” The Tend recharges easily in just two hours, has several different speeds and vibrating patterns, and is waterproof.

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Person using a handheld Teno massage device on their shoulder.
A hand holds a grey, wand-shaped device branded “tend” in front of its open product box and a black carrying pouch.

10. Therabody
Best For | Back pain

While Therabody is known for its Theragun, they make plenty of other high-tech recovery products, too, like the ThermBack LED that targets lower back pain specifically. The device uses four different types of therapy to reduce tension in your lower back — LED that reduces inflammation, infrared, which gives you deep-penetrating heat to reduce pain, vibration to massage the back muscles and relieve tension, and heat therapy to boost circulation and reduce stiffness. The ThermBack wraps around your back and has a sleek, comfortable design so you can wear it while you’re moving around, and it’s clinically proven to reduce lower back pain in a State University of New York at Buffalo trial. It comes with a travel case, a one-year warranty, and a 30-day return policy if you don’t love it.

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A person wearing a red light therapy belt wrapped around their waist.
A person wearing a Therabody back wrap over their clothes while gardening.

Featured image by Canopy

Natalie Gale is a Contributing Editor at Good Gear and The Good Trade. She is a freelance journalist covering lifestyle, wellness, sustainability, and food for publications like Bustle, The Zoe Report, Boston Globe Media, The Good Trade, and others. When she’s not writing, you can find her on a hike, at the farmers’ market, in a yoga class, or planning her future travels. Find her on Instagram or at nataliekgale.com.