MindFlow: Breathing-Integrated Progressive Muscle Relaxation with a Full-Body Self-Avatar in Virtual Reality

Breathing exercises and Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) have complementary effects, making their integration a common practice among relaxation techniques. While numerous virtual reality (VR) exercises support breathing exercises in self-training, integrating breathing support into PMR in VR presents challenges, including maintaining the user's sense of presence and ensuring the effectiveness of breathing guidance. In this paper, we present MindFlow, a system design that combines breathing biofeedback with a full-body self-avatar, using mindfulness-based principles to provide effective, breathing-integrated PMR guidance in VR. The system demonstrates effectiveness in enhancing relaxation and reducing anxiety in novice users, based on empirical results from a 24-participant user study, offering generalizable insights for the design of embodied mindfulness systems and further research on mindfulness support in virtual and mixed reality.