What are the New Ways to Achieve Mindfulness?

Combining centuries-old traditional mandala coloring with cutting-edge computing and brain-sensing technologies could help people achieve mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a way of being present in the moment, and it has been associated with helping people to improve their mental health and wellbeing.

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‘Techniques that use fine motor skills, such as colouring intricate details on mandalas, or meditation beads improve mindfulness.’

Human-computer interaction researchers designed a new prototype that helps people to focus on attention mindfulness techniques and help people deal with stress, depression, and other affective health disorders.

The research has been published by the Taylor and Francis Human-Computer Interaction Journal.

In the first part of the study, researchers interviewed experienced mandala practitioners to find out about the special qualities of mandala coloring, and how they can be used to achieve mindfulness and based the prototype on their findings.

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The prototype, called ‘Anima’, included a tablet device for users to color mandala shapes, a wearable EEG headset* that reads wearers’ brain signals, and a second display in the shape of an artists’ palette, that is placed in the user’s periphery.

When users color a digital mandala, using a stylus, on the main display, the EEG headset monitors their brain signals and gages levels of mindfulness. Mandalas are geometric configurations of shapes that have their origins in Buddhist traditions.

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The readings are then represented on the peripheral display as new additional colors, based on four colors selected at the start by the user, but with changes to the saturation and brightness.

More subtle colors represented mindfulness periods, with brighter colors representing periods where the user lost focus or became distracted.

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Professor Corina Sas of Lancaster University’s School of Computing and Communications said: “Making sense of EEG data and capturing it effectively through design is not a trivial process. It was important that the colors appearing on the peripheral display, which was decoupled from the main screen, were ambiguous and subtle to provide the ability for users to openly monitor their mindfulness but not in a way that distracted their attention from the coloring itself.

The study outcomes suggest two important and previously unrecognized roles of the mandala: capturing emotional memories and reflecting on them. The technology could support both these roles in ways paper-based mandalas are less able to do so.

Participants noted they would much prefer to re-engage with their completed mandala at the reflection stage, and that they longed to even recolor them, often in more positive colors after they had reflected and their mental situation had shifted.

The study found that many people who use mandala coloring for mindfulness and to help with their mental health like to keep their completed mandalas and look back at them as a way of reflecting on how they felt at the time they colored them.

This can be extended to the design of peripheral visual feedback designs for other types of technologies monitoring mindfulness training on the main display.

This could be wristbands on which real-time visuals may appear in random order as a subtle indication of one’s mindfulness state, or as colors embedded in objects, such as backlit mouse pads.

Source-Medindia