Assignment 8 – Sophia

Mindfulness Bracelet

Mindfulness is the state of being aware in the present moment as well as taking a non-evaluative and non-judgmental approach to one’s inner experience.  Adopting new habits and new ways of thinking is very difficult.  New books and studies are constantly released with methods for self-improvement and the secrets to happiness, but trying to remember these in the midst of the hecticness of life can seem impossible.  Practicing mindfulness is one way to improve awareness of habits and goals during those busy moments, but remembering to be mindful itself can be hard! Is it possible to build a device that can improve mindfulness?

To change habits and reach goals we need to remember our intentions at the right time.  Existing tools for remembering and achieving goals are evaluative and can feel judgemental, two qualities which go against the teachings of mindfulness. Notes, visualizations, inspirational images, logging tools, point systems…even tying a string to your finger…are all easy to ignore when your attention is elsewhere and not easy to take with you.  Calendar reminders and alarms feel judgemental and intrusive.  Devices like Fitbit and reflectOns are evaluative and may feel judgemental to some. In general, systems that use rewards or punishment to motivate are shown to not be as effective in the long run.  Once the system is gone, the person’s behavior tends to go back to normal.  In addition, happiness and satisfaction also lessened using punishment and reward systems because the accomplishment feels less authentic.  Developing intrinsic motivation through a mindfulness meditation practice is supposedly one of the best ways to train yourself for awareness, focused attention, and willpower, but it can be hard to integrate with your daily routine. 

Some people are already experimenting with devices to bring awareness to emotions.  The EmoBracelet (http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/gadget-warns-online-traders-of-dud-decisions-20091015-gy7d.html) was developed for stock traders to be mindful of stress and overexcitement.  The Noumic (http://www.noumic.com/) was developed for use as a meditation tool.  However, both of these use lights and/or sounds, which are disruptive and attract attention, and the Noumic is not wearable and must be held. 

I propose to build a subtle yet stylish bracelet that provides gentle reminders during your daily routine.  Embedded within the bracelet is a sensor to measure galvanic skin response.  Galvanic skin response is used to measure emotional arousal.  In response to strong emotions, the bracelet would become warm and give the user’s wrist a gentle hug to remind the user to be aware of her actions and mental state.  Galvanic skin response can show whether you are excited or stressed but it has trouble distinguishing between the two.  Though for other applications this can be a problem, mindfulness requires a non-judgemental approach and this would actually be a benefit in this application.  The user would be reminded to reflect during all kinds of heightened emotions, which is what mindfulness encourages.

I would find such a device useful within my own life.  For example, I am reading Flow by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.  In this book, he describes methods for making our work feel more meaningful and increasing happiness through focused attention, challenging myself, etc. It is very hard to remember his methods when I am actually in the middle of my work and stressed out. What if the bracelet gave me a reminder through warmth and a gentle squeeze to think about these methods that I want to remember?  Also, affirmations (shown to be effective at increasing happiness, decreasing stress, and changing habits) and calming exercises are also hard to remember.  Could my bracelet detect my stress and then subtly remind me to relax? Could such a device be used to help during meditation? During meditation, it is extremely easy to let your mind wander. Could I use a sensor to detect my wandering attention and gently guide my thoughts back to my meditation?

To implement this this device, I would start simple, maybe just using heat. Flexible heat circuits are easy to get and could be sewn into fabric or cast into flexible silicon.  Galvanic skin response sensors are also available online, but I believe that this bracelet would be effective even if it only went off randomly.  Currently, I don’t know how I would implement the gentle squeeze functionality, but I think the bracelet would work with just heat.   For a device like this to be useful, it would have to have good battery life and recharging would have to be easy.  It would also have to be stylish and unobtrusive so the user wouldn’t mind wearing it.  Ideally, it would be nice to have a small screen on the bracelet so you can optionally use it to remember different things.  Also, it might be useful if the bracelet can be tied to other devices using bluetooth or some other type of wireless communication in order to be able to tie it in with different contexts and perhaps do some logging.

Through this project, I hope to demonstrate that I can increase the likelihood of changing my behavior, habits, and thought patterns. I believe that this will be effective even if the reminders are done randomly, reinforcing pathways and associations during all kinds of situations. I also hope that the bracelet can be so subtle that it can eventually trigger different thoughts and behavior even if the user isn’t fully conscious of the physical signal.