Many people find meditation and breathwork to be challenging, yet the research is clear that the benefits are manifold, helping to reduce stress, anxiety, improve sleep, enhance focus, among many other positive outcomes.
Most mindfulness meditation focuses on the breath. You sit, pay attention to the air in your nostrils or chest, and, when aware of being distracted by a thought, come back to the breath. For many people, this does not work. They do not find the breath to be an anchor to help hold their mind. Instead, they find their mind racing and are unable to sit for longer than a few minutes.
For this project, I propose approaching meditation and holotropic breathwork by leveraging a different sense: vision. With maintaining a soft gaze on an object, one can induce a similar level of flow and mindfulness. I envision the object to be a glowing lamp or orb with gentle, soft light that dims and brightens. Breathing is then guided by ebbs and flows in the glow of the light.
Ideally, this lamp could pick up on a person's breath pattern and help them to slow down, reducing the pace of their breath gradually, lengthening their exhales and helping them settle into greater focus and relaxation. If this isn't possible, perhaps there can be different breathwork patterns that can be programmed into the lamp and a person is able to choose their preferred approach.
I'm interested in the use of this lamp for not only meditation, but also holotropic breathwork, which, through complicated breathwork patterns, can dramatically reduce stress and induce non-ordinary states of consciousness, similar to deep meditation (or even psychadelics). Perhaps it would be possible to program the lamp with holotropic patterns as well. Although meditation breathing lamps exist, I have seen nothing related to visual holotropic guidance.
Finally, I want to design this object to be beautiful, something people would like to display in their homes (this would also differentiate it from existing products on the market). Aside from aesthetic appeal, it should be situated visibly so people remember to meditate daily!
