Engineering Music to Slow Breathing and Invite Relaxed Physiology

Abstract

We engineered an interactive music system that influences a user's breathing rate to induce a relaxation response. This system generates ambient music containing periodic shifts in loudness that are determined by the user's own breathing patterns. We evaluated the efficacy of this music intervention for participants who were engaged in an attention-demanding task, and thus explicitly not focusing on their breathing or on listening to the music. We measured breathing patterns in addition to multiple peripheral and cortical indicators of physiological arousal while users experienced three different interaction designs: (1) a "Fixed Tempo" amplitude modulation rate at six beats per minute; (2) a "Personalized Tempo" modulation rate fixed at 75% of each individual's breathing rate baseline, and (3) a "Personalized Envelope" design in which the amplitude modulation matches each individual's breathing pattern in real-time. Our results revealed that each interactive music design slowed down breathing rates, with the "Personalized Tempo" design having the largest effect, one that was more significant than the non-personalized design. The physiological arousal indicators (electrodermal activity, heart rate, and slow cortical potentials measured in EEG) showed concomitant reductions, suggesting that slowing users' breathing rates shifted them towards a more calmed state. These results suggest that interactive music incorporating biometric data may have greater effects on physiology than traditional recorded music.

Towards Mindless Stress Regulation in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems: A Systematic Review

“…Focusing on respiration, Harris et al ( 2014 ) modified music by adding white noise that varied according to participants' BR. Leslie et al ( 2019 ) also tested various music modifications depending on the respiratory signal. Sato and Moriya ( 2019 ) used music by controlling the synchronicity with acoustical timing (phrases, pitch change).…”

ViBreathe: Heart Rate Variability Enhanced Respiration Training for Workaday Stress Management via an Eyes-Free Tangible Interface

“…The results of this study have shown some promises of adaptive breathing guidance. A recently similar study (Leslie et al, 2019) exploring personalized musical breathing guidance has also shown that adaptive guidance could be more effective in slowing down breathing rates and leading to a more calm state. The adaptive guidance enables the flexibility for the system to fit different individuals.…”

“…Most single-modal breathing guidance relies on visual displays, which could take a variety of forms, such as an accurate guiding wave (Park et al, 2009), an evocative metaphorical visualization (Yu et al, 2017), a playful animation or game (Shih et al, 2019;Sonne & Jensen, 2016), or an immersive light environment . Auditory breathing guidance usually employs a simple audio tone (Clark & Hirschman, 1990;Gavish, 2010) and nature sounds (Ettehadi et al, 2020) or uses musical elements (Leslie et al, 2019;. Multi-modal interfaces are usually used for adding extra information to the guidance or enhancing immersive experiences in training.…”

Studying Personalized Just-in-time Auditory Breathing Guides and Potential Safety Implications during Simulated Driving

“…In the corresponding study, music was composed in real-time according to the user's breathing patterns while they were focused on a reaction-time task, without knowledge about how the music was being generated or its potential purpose. Multiple physiological arousal indicators (breathing rate, electrodermal activity (EDA), heart rate, and slow cortical potentials measured in electrocardiographic signals) consistently showed a shift towards a calmer state [22].…”