Embreathment
Embreathment is an emerging concept in embodied cognition and is the use of one’s physiological breath during immersive experiences to enhance presence in the moment and body awareness, examples which include body scan meditation and progressive muscle relaxation. This awareness can be used to reduce claustrophobia, anxiety, and other negative cognitions by enhancing agency, hopefulness, and interoception in situations where one’s ability to act is restricted, such as in medical MRI suites. Using breath awareness to increase one’s sense of calm and control has been shown to decrease one’s sense of the symptoms of anxiety disorders.
What is Embreathment?
Embodied Cognition
The concept of environmental enrichment has shown us how one’s physical environment impacts mental and physical well-being by altering the biochemistry and neuroanatomical structure of the brain. In addition, embreathment, or the representation of one’s physiological breath in immersive experiences to enhance presence and body awareness, is a relatively new concept and tool in embodied cognition that can improve well-being. Embreathment may be experienced, for example, by watching a video of a peaceful landscape that expands and contracts with the rhythm of one’s own breath, or by consciously becoming aware of one’s breath in exercises such as body scan meditation and progressive muscle relaxation.
Applications for Our Health
Embreathment can be used to reduce claustrophobia, anxiety, and associated negative cognitions by enhancing a sense of agency, sustained hopefulness, and interoception in situations where one’s ability to act is restricted. In cancer centers, for example, some patients experience intense claustrophobia in MRI or CT machines, which presents a significant psychological challenge in delivering optimal treatment. However, embreathment techniques have been proven to increase patients’ sense of mental and physical control and decrease their sense of claustrophobia.
Embreathment and The Helmsley Cancer Center
CT Stimulator Rooms
At the Helmsley Cancer Center, the CT simulator room explores these multisensory neuro-wellness treatment options. The room was designed with maximal sensory programming capabilities, enabling multisensory integration of auditory, visual, and tactile cues, including a curved LED display surrounding the CT scan machine, with ambient lights extending the display’s effects to the whole room; a unique nine-speaker ambisonic audio system, which allows for algorithms to localize sounds in space; and haptic interfaces along the surface of the CT machine’s bed.
Finally, integrated sensors create interactive experiences, enabling a personalized user experience through dynamic interaction with the patient’s own physiological signals. This Embreathment experience uses localized sounds and images to reduce the patient’s anxiety and enhances their sense of control and body awareness through representations of their breath. This guides the patient to the desired calmer breathing pattern, resulting in, among other things, a sense of hopefulness and agency.
Looking Forward
We are now beginning to explore similar implementations that would be constructed using human responsive technology, reactive lighting, and interactive kinetic architectural elements in treatment rooms, waiting areas, and staff lounges.
In the future, these implementations would be applied to the entire range of the patient experience, beginning with parking areas, through the main lobby, and along all circulation routes. By the time a person reaches the radiation treatment room, their sense of agency and hopefulness, not to mention their healing – achieved through an environmentally enriched journey – would be well underway.
