Breath-Triggered Haptic and Acoustic Guides to Support Effortless Calm Breathing

Stress is a common issue in today's society and can be caused by a variety of triggers in activities such as work or driving. Various negative consequences can arise of stress such as reduced job productivity, sleep disorders, or physiological diseases like depression or anxiety. A popular approach to manage stress is voluntary deep and slow breathing. However, deliberate deep breathing requires conscious attention and effort, and thus often interferes with daily activities such as working and driving. We present a system that monitors the user's breathing in real-time and provides rhythmical feedback to support effortless and unconscious slow breathing in everyday-life. Our system comprises three feedback modes: 1.) acoustic feedback, 2.) haptic feedback, and 3.) mixed feedback combining both modalities. We apply our system in a driver setting and conduct a user study with twelve participants to evaluate the effects of our intervention on users' physiology and perception. We find that acoustic and mixed guiding can reduce breathing pace without affecting focus, which suggests that subtle rhythmical feedback is a promising approach to reduce breathing pace and thus counteract stress.