17-Year-Old Entrepreneur Makes Worry Stones to Help People Relax

A Rye teenage entrepreneur is helping people to reduce stress and anxiety with hand-crafted, porcelain worry stones.

After successfully launching a Kickstarter campaign that hit over 150 percent of the funding goal, SoulStones.com has officially launched. SoulStones are hand-crafted worry stones that can help to reduce stress and anxiety. Each SoulStone is a piece of porcelain covered in a layer of glass.

“They’re beautiful to look at and feel awesome in the hand,” brainchild behind the project Conner Sexton said.

“And because SoulStones are handmade, each one is unique and has its own personal character. We think of them as small works of art.”

The 17-year-old said he came up with the idea while at a restaurant.

“I was given a worry stone at a restaurant. At the time, I didn’t even know what a worry stone was, but what I did know was that rubbing that stone helped me to relieve anxiety. It occurred to me that if that stone could help me, it could probably help a lot of other people as well.”

114 backers pledged $7,628 to help bring his project to life.

SoulStones are glazed in one of seven colors, each of which is linked to a specific emotion based on the Psychology of Color. Orange represents confidence, red promotes energy, blue triggers serenity and so on. While rubbing a SoulStone, people are encouraged to reflect on its associated value. It takes ten individual steps to create a SoulStone, from the initial molding to the final sanding. This process can take up to 14 days.

Sexton said that worry stones date back to the Ancient Greeks and have been used in many cultures around the world including Native American and Ottoman. He believes that worry stones have been around for so long because they work.

“They’re an all-natural way to combat stress and anxiety. Anxiety is a widespread problem in the U.S. with more than 40 million people suffering from anxiety disorders according to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. I’ve heard from people as far away as New Zealand that tell me about how anxiety is a real problem in their lives and how SoulStones are helping them to cope,“ said Sexton.

For more info visit SoulStones.com.