To understand how to deal with stress, fundamental questions of psychology and philosophy arise: Why is relaxation so important? How do relaxation techniques from psychotherapy work? Can digitization offer added value? How can we make it easier for people to access their inner self? And can we learn to free ourselves from the pressure to perform?
The main focus of this work is the attempt to examine methods from psychotherapy. The virtual application is an example for the implementation of a digitized relaxation method.
The application focuses on the physiological reaction feature of breathing. During the entire relaxation process, breathing demands the full attention of the person. It also forms the optical focus in the virtual environment. During the exercise, the user has a breathing sensor attached around the chest. This sensor continuously analyses the breathing and distinguishes between short, normal and long breaths. A graphic visualizes the breath in real time. The breath graphic floats in the middle of a large clearing. All around, a hilly landscape fading in the distance forms the horizon. The greyish environment helps the user to keep the values of the graphic and thus its aesthetics in balance.
Since the human being is always in the foreground and his perception is individual, the design resources must be flexible and adaptable. Digital media can help to make inner processes easier to grasp, for those who are less or not at all accessible for classical relaxation methods. It should be noted that people should not adapt to digitization. Ways have to be found to adapt digitization to the human being, while its value is continuously being critically questioned.
