Ubiqutious Mindfulness Practices

Summary

Mindfulness technologies have gained research interest in recent years. We explore the use of smart-glasses (Optical Head Mounted Displays or OHMDs) for breath-based mindfulness practice as a well-being technology for everyday users. Since OHMDs do not occlude the wearer’s view, practitioners can access the digital environment while performing daily activities. Through our pilot series, we identifed suitable visual and auditory attributes for OHMD mindfulness sessions in casual walking settings, and combined user-preferred features into our proposed Mindful Moments design. Results on physiological, sustained attention and self-reported mindfulness measures suggest that Mindful Moments facilitates higher state mindfulness than the Control. Its results proved comparable to the state-of-the-art Walking Meditation, while also being more accessible, convenient, and easy for novice practitioners to implement in everyday environments. We further evaluate Mindful Moments in a realistic setting, enhancing current understanding of mindfulness practice on OHMDs, thereby contributing a technique for improved health and well-being.