Whiteprint

Building

Breathband, a band that paces your breathing

A wrist or ankle band that taps at each breath in and out, and uses a heart rate strap to find the breathing pace that calms your body most.

Cost: about A$40 Build time: 3 weeks Evidence: ●●●●

The rule it tests: When stressed, breathe. Learn to calm your body. (source)

The idea

Slow breathing at around six breaths a minute makes your heart rate rise and fall in a large, smooth wave. Each person has a pace where that wave is biggest, often called the resonance rate. Breathing at it for a few minutes is one of the better studied ways to settle the nervous system.

Apps can pace your breathing with a sound or an animation, which means staring at a phone. Breathband does it with a silent tap on the wrist, so it works with eyes closed, in a lecture, or in bed.

How it works

  1. A coin sized vibration motor ticks at every switch between breathing in and out.
  2. A Bluetooth chest strap sends every heartbeat to the app.
  3. The app tries a few paces, measures how far heart rate swings at each, and settles on the one with the biggest swing.

Where it is at

The pacing app and the search for the best rate work in the browser with a chest strap. The band firmware compiles. Parts for two bands are ordered, and nothing has been tested on real hardware yet.

Parts

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