MindFlow: Breathing-Integrated Progressive Muscle Relaxation with a Full-Body Self-Avatar in Virtual Reality
Journal
DIS 2025 - Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
Start Page
1658
End Page
1673
ISBN (of the container)
979-840071485-6
ISBN
[9798400714856]
Date Issued
2025-07-04
Author(s)
Abstract
Breathing exercises and Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) have complementary effects, making their integration a common practice among relaxation techniques. While numerous virtual reality (VR) exercises support breathing exercises in self-training, integrating breathing support into PMR in VR presents challenges, including maintaining the user's sense of presence and ensuring the effectiveness of breathing guidance. In this paper, we present MindFlow, a system design that combines breathing biofeedback with a full-body self-avatar, using mindfulness-based principles to provide effective, breathing-integrated PMR guidance in VR. The system demonstrates effectiveness in enhancing relaxation and reducing anxiety in novice users, based on empirical results from a 24-participant user study, offering generalizable insights for the design of embodied mindfulness systems and further research on mindfulness support in virtual and mixed reality.
Event(s)
2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, DIS 2025
Subjects
Embodied Interaction
Mindfulness
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
User Experience
Virtual Reality
SDGs
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
Type
conference paper