Breathing exercises with biofeedback have benefits over breathing exercises without biofeedback. However, the traditional measurement of respiratory signals that is required as part of feeding back the breath incurs high cost and effort. We propose a novel virtual reality (VR) based approach to respiratory biofeedback that utilizes the positionally tracked hand controllers integrated into modern VR systems to capture and feedback the respiration-induced abdominal movements. In a randomized controlled laboratory study, we investigated the feasibility and efficacy of the developed biofeedback algorithm. In total, 72 participants performed a short breathing exercise in VR with or without respiratory biofeedback. The feedback integration resulted in a satisfactory user experience, a heightened breath awareness, a greater focus on slow diaphragmatic breathing and an increased respiratory sinus arrhythmia. This evidences that the novel biofeedback approach is low-cost, unobtrusive, usable and effective in increasing breath awareness and promoting slow diaphragmatic breathing in the context of VR-based breathing exercises. Future studies need to investigate the broader applicability and long-term effects.

中文翻译：

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虚拟现实呼吸生物反馈方法的开发和试点测试。

有生物反馈的呼吸练习比没有生物反馈的呼吸练习有好处。然而，作为反馈呼吸的一部分所需的呼吸信号的传统测量招致高成本和精力。我们提出了一种新的基于虚拟现实 (VR) 的呼吸生物反馈方法，该方法利用集成到现代 VR 系统中的位置跟踪手控制器来捕获和反馈呼吸引起的腹部运动。在一项随机对照实验室研究中，我们调查了开发的生物反馈算法的可行性和有效性。总共有 72 名参与者在 VR 中进行了有或没有呼吸生物反馈的短呼吸练习。反馈集成带来了令人满意的用户体验，提高了呼吸意识，更加关注缓慢的膈肌呼吸和增加的呼吸性窦性心律失常。这证明新型生物反馈方法成本低、不显眼、可用且有效，可在基于 VR 的呼吸练习中提高呼吸意识和促进缓慢的横膈膜呼吸。未来的研究需要调查更广泛的适用性和长期影响。