UBICOMP/ISWC ’17 ADJUNCT, SEPTEMBER 11-15, 2017, MAUI, HAWAII, USA

Towards Interactive Mindfulness
Training Using Breathing BasedFeedback
Andrea M. Pisa*
Royal College of Art andImperial College London
London, UK
andrea.pisa@network.rca.ac.uk

Andriana F. Nassou*
Royal College of Art andImperial College London
London, UK
andriana.nassou@network.rca.ac.uk

George Chernyshov
Kai Kunze
Keio University Graduate School Keio University Graduate Schoolof Media Designof Media Design
Yokohama, Japan
Yokohama, Japan
chernyshov@kmd.keio.ac.jp
kai@kmd.keio.ac.jp*Shared first authorship

AbstractAlthough regular meditation practice is linked to numerous
mental health and cognitive benefits, it is often difficult for
beginners to maintain focus during practice and persevere
with the activity over time. To tackle this issue, we externalised the ability of self reporting loss of focus by developing a feedback loop that helps the user track and maintaintheir concentration levels in a non-invasive manner. We hypothesise that the change in breathing pattern can indicate
a loss of concentration and the act of audibly amplifying aperson’s breathing sounds during meditation can help themregain and maintain focus on their breathing, leading to amore effective meditation session. We present experimental
designs and findings towards this end.

Author Keywords
Meditation; Breathing Feedback; Attention; Focus; Selfregulation process; Interactivity; Mindfulness; Biosignals

ACM Classification Keywords
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UbiComp/ISWC’17 Adjunct , September 11–15, 2017, Maui, HI, USA
ACM 978-1-4503-5190-4/17/09.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3123024.3129268

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H.5.2 [User Interfaces ]: User-centered design

Motivation
Meditation has been proven to have numerous mental
health benefits, including increasing a person’s self regulation of attention, reducing the rate of gray matter deterioration amongst elderly and improving mental health [5, 8,

UBICOMP/ISWC ’17 ADJUNCT, SEPTEMBER 11-15, 2017, MAUI, HAWAII, USA

9]. The benefits of meditation on sustained attention havebeen confirmed from earlier studies [7] although results arebased on regular and focused practice. Novice practitioners
tend to struggle to gain focus and remain focused during
meditation [6]. As a result, the activity may become frustrating and ineffective.
This paper presents first steps towards a system capableof tracking user’s concentration during meditation and providing real-time feedback to help maintain the concentration
throughout the meditation session. Since one of the mostimportant aspects of meditation is the control of one’s own
breathing, the system uses breathing as its main input. For
the output, the sound of the user’s breathing is played backto the user in real-time. Audio feedback was chosen as itis reported to be the most effective means of feedback inmeditation[2].

Figure 1: Experimental setup.

We hypothesise that audibly amplifying a person’s breathing as they lose focus will help bring their attention back totheir breathing and thus help them regain focus. The system is triggered when the user’s breathing patterns signal
loss of concentration, meaning that it will support the user
only when it is needed, metaphorically scaffolding and supporting the meditation learning process and being inactive
most of the time for experienced meditation practitioners.
The contributions of the paper are (1) a novel approachfor facilitating meditation by artificially amplifying the user’sbreathing sounds, (2) indication that a user’s loss of focus
can be detected based on their breathing pattern and (3)user feedback on breathing sound amplification.

Approach
We chose to focus on Zazen meditation, a type of meditation practiced in Zen Buddhism, as it promotes focus on thebreath which is a measurement that can be monitored non-689

invasively. During Zazen meditation, a practitioner is seated
whilst maintaining a lowered gaze pointing 2-3 feet in frontof them.
The aim was to develop an aid for people to use whilst
meditating. Current applications and devices use guided
meditation where users follow instructions from a meditationteacher [10, 11]. This technique may not always be effective
as the users have to follow the pace of the instructions aswell as self evaluate their performance, a complicated task
particularly for novices.
The approach is based on the attention regulation process[1] which describes the cycle of self-regulation, supported
by technology-mediated detection and feedback mechanisms. The augmentation of a person’s breathing sounds
was used to help them achieve and maintain a state of focus. We hypothesise that gradual amplification of a person’s breathing sound will help them regain and maintaintheir focus.

Experimental Design
In order to conduct the experiment we identified the needof a pilot study that would help us form a baseline for detecting loss of concentration, identify the necessary data to
be collected and the equipment best suited to complete thistask.
In the pilot set-up, 7 individuals took part (3 men and 4women) aged 23-30. One participant reported doing daily
meditation whilst the rest were novice. The participants
were asked to complete a Psychomotor Vigilance Task(PVT) test followed by a short introduction on how to conduct Zazen meditation. The participant had 3 min of rest,followed by 10 minutes of continuous meditation. During theexperiment, participants were asked to sit on the floor in acrossed legged position or on a chair according to their per-

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sonal preference. After the end of the meditation they had 3
minutes of rest before completing a second PVT test. The
PVT tests enable comparison of alertness before and afterthe rest and meditation sequences [4]. A change in alertness would indicate that the participant had experienced
some change in their cognitive state during the session.
During the rest and meditation periods, participants wereasked to wear a microphone attached to the base of theirthroat and headphones in order for their breathing to berecorded and replayed in real-time when their breathing rate
exceeded a certain threshold. After the meditation and rest
sequence, a semi structured interview was conducted witheach participant. Participants were split into two groups,
first group experienced the intervention and the second
group served as a control group. All participants wore thesame equipment throughout the session.

Figure 2: Concentration loss
acknowledgement button

We attached a respiration detection strap with a stretch
sensor around their chests to measure the rate, phaseand depth of respiration. The amplification of the breathing sound was triggered when the breathing rate exceeded
10-11 breaths per minute [3]. Using this breathing rate as
an indicator of focus loss was intended to be a starting point
for the initial study with the aim to be adjusted for later experiments. The participants also had a button attached totheir index finger and were asked to press it as an acknowledgment of loss of focus before returning to their breath.
The button presses were recorded together with the datafrom plethismograph for further analysis. The use of a button was intended to replicate a common practice in Zazen
meditation, whereby practitioners follow a specific ritual
when they detect loss of focus before they return their focus to their breathing. Our aim was to examine whether
the physiological data (number of breaths/min) synchronisewith the individual’s self reporting of loss of focus.

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Figure 3: Upper: Breaths per minute(Y) and number of breath (X).
The rate is the average of the last three breaths. Lower: Standard
Deviation of the breathing cycle length of the last three breaths inmilliseconds (Y), number of the breath (X). Red dots represent thebutton clicks, as an acknowledgement of the lost of concentration.

UBICOMP/ISWC ’17 ADJUNCT, SEPTEMBER 11-15, 2017, MAUI, HAWAII, USA

Discussion and and Future WorkThe data show less concentration losses for the group withinterventions, however not statistically significant in thissmall study.
This initial study shows clear changes in breathing patterns,
such as a change in frequency or irregularity in breathing
rate before the participants report loss of focus by clicking
the button. The fragments of recordings presented in theFig.3 show an example of typical abnormalities that precede the loss of concentration report.
The average breathing rate oscillated around 10-12 breaths
per minute, with two outliers of 6-7 and 15-17 breaths perminute. Breathing patterns varied between participants,
which means that a constant threshold is not applicable
as a universal solution. In a future experiment, dynamic
breathing characteristics analysis and user-dependentthresholding will be implemented to verify the feasibility ofa universal system that is able to adjust to different breathing rates and patterns of different people.
The interviews conducted after the study showed that theparticipants who experienced the intervention found thesound of their own breathing to be non-diverting and suitable for the cause.

Conclusions
In this paper we introduce initial work towards helping practitioners maintain focus during meditation. The approach ofrecording the breathing characteristics such as rate, depth
and regularity and amplifying the sound of breathing as thebreathing rate exceeded a certain threshold seems promising based on initial findings. Loss of focus can be detected
as a change in breathing pattern prior to a participant’s selfreporting of loss of focus. A study with a larger participantgroup is planned with user-dependent calibration to estab-691

lish the normal breathing pattern. This study will further
explore the efficacy of using breathing amplification to help
the practitioner regain focus after experiencing loss of focus.

Acknowledgments
This research is supported by JST Presto, Grant No: JPMJPR16D4.

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