Soft Robotic Compression Garment to Assist Novice Meditators

Abstract

Long-term mindfulness meditation is known to improve one's health. However, many novice meditators find long-term adoption of the practice challenging due to difficulties in maintaining focused attention (FA). With the positive effects provided by the sense of touch (warmth, compression), this work seeks to investigate if haptic-based wearable technologies can help promote FA in novice meditators and improve the meditation experience. A user study on novice practitioners (n=10, 4M/6F) showed potential in using compression/warmth stimuli to positively augment meditation and we discuss implications for future haptic meditation practices.