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A multisensory mindfulness experience: exploring the promotion of sensory awareness as a mindfulness practice
OBJECTIVES: In this preliminary and multidisciplinary exploratory study, we assessed whether a mindfulness practice could be enhanced through a multisensory experience design that mimics the “beginner’s mind,” relying on sensory awareness and biofeedback processes as participants interact with the e...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10666737/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38023042 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1230832 |
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author | Finck, Carolyn Avila, Alba Jiménez-Leal, William Botero, Juan Pablo Shambo, Daniel Hernandez, Susana Reinoso-Carvalho, Felipe Andonova, Veneta |
author_facet | Finck, Carolyn Avila, Alba Jiménez-Leal, William Botero, Juan Pablo Shambo, Daniel Hernandez, Susana Reinoso-Carvalho, Felipe Andonova, Veneta |
author_sort | Finck, Carolyn |
collection | PubMed |
description | OBJECTIVES: In this preliminary and multidisciplinary exploratory study, we assessed whether a mindfulness practice could be enhanced through a multisensory experience design that mimics the “beginner’s mind,” relying on sensory awareness and biofeedback processes as participants interact with the experience. METHODS: We piloted and designed two conditions, being (a) a guided mindfulness practice based on the senses as an anchor to the present moment, using audio instruction only; and (b) an experience of mindfulness practice with successive sensory stimulation (olfactory, audio, and visual stimulation) followed by an interactive experience with biofeedback that provides a visual representation of the person’s heartbeat in real-time. For each of the conditions we assessed anxiety (state and trait), as well as other psychological variables pre- and post-experience. Additionally, we measured the heart rate variability (HRV) at baseline, during each stage of the experience as well as post intervention. RESULTS: We collected valid data for a total of 68 individuals. Both groups were similar regarding mean age, sex, and occupation and had similar prior experience with mindfulness. There were no significant differences regarding prior state or trait anxiety between the groups. Analysis of the physiological variables showed that for both groups there was an increase in the parasympathetic activity after the multisensory experience, with small differences in the conditions of stimulation. We did not observe significant differences between the pre and post measures for state of test anxiety. The observed parasympathetic activity variations after both experiences compared with pre and post-surveys demonstrate the importance of physiological vs psychological inspection beyond the common human rational experience that is not always resonate with the body’s response and impacts the needed literacy to self-awareness of emotional well-being. CONCLUSION: Participants in both conditions could effectively connect with the experience, while achieving a physiological response different from their baseline state. The acceptance of the designed stimuli was very high, although more research is still needed to uncover its full potential. In sum, the design of multisensory experiences using technology to create an interactive connection with the sensory stimulus, is a promising field in mindfulness and especially in practices involving sensory awareness through the monitoring of parasympathetic activity as an inference indicator of the present-moment connection. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10666737 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-106667372023-11-09 A multisensory mindfulness experience: exploring the promotion of sensory awareness as a mindfulness practice Finck, Carolyn Avila, Alba Jiménez-Leal, William Botero, Juan Pablo Shambo, Daniel Hernandez, Susana Reinoso-Carvalho, Felipe Andonova, Veneta Front Psychol Psychology OBJECTIVES: In this preliminary and multidisciplinary exploratory study, we assessed whether a mindfulness practice could be enhanced through a multisensory experience design that mimics the “beginner’s mind,” relying on sensory awareness and biofeedback processes as participants interact with the experience. METHODS: We piloted and designed two conditions, being (a) a guided mindfulness practice based on the senses as an anchor to the present moment, using audio instruction only; and (b) an experience of mindfulness practice with successive sensory stimulation (olfactory, audio, and visual stimulation) followed by an interactive experience with biofeedback that provides a visual representation of the person’s heartbeat in real-time. For each of the conditions we assessed anxiety (state and trait), as well as other psychological variables pre- and post-experience. Additionally, we measured the heart rate variability (HRV) at baseline, during each stage of the experience as well as post intervention. RESULTS: We collected valid data for a total of 68 individuals. Both groups were similar regarding mean age, sex, and occupation and had similar prior experience with mindfulness. There were no significant differences regarding prior state or trait anxiety between the groups. Analysis of the physiological variables showed that for both groups there was an increase in the parasympathetic activity after the multisensory experience, with small differences in the conditions of stimulation. We did not observe significant differences between the pre and post measures for state of test anxiety. The observed parasympathetic activity variations after both experiences compared with pre and post-surveys demonstrate the importance of physiological vs psychological inspection beyond the common human rational experience that is not always resonate with the body’s response and impacts the needed literacy to self-awareness of emotional well-being. CONCLUSION: Participants in both conditions could effectively connect with the experience, while achieving a physiological response different from their baseline state. The acceptance of the designed stimuli was very high, although more research is still needed to uncover its full potential. In sum, the design of multisensory experiences using technology to create an interactive connection with the sensory stimulus, is a promising field in mindfulness and especially in practices involving sensory awareness through the monitoring of parasympathetic activity as an inference indicator of the present-moment connection. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-11-09 /pmc/articles/PMC10666737/ /pubmed/38023042 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1230832 Text en Copyright © 2023 Finck, Avila, Jiménez-Leal, Botero Torres, Shambo, Hernandez Toro, Reinoso-Carvalho and Andonova. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Finck, Carolyn Avila, Alba Jiménez-Leal, William Botero, Juan Pablo Shambo, Daniel Hernandez, Susana Reinoso-Carvalho, Felipe Andonova, Veneta A multisensory mindfulness experience: exploring the promotion of sensory awareness as a mindfulness practice |
title | A multisensory mindfulness experience: exploring the promotion of sensory awareness as a mindfulness practice |
title_full | A multisensory mindfulness experience: exploring the promotion of sensory awareness as a mindfulness practice |
title_fullStr | A multisensory mindfulness experience: exploring the promotion of sensory awareness as a mindfulness practice |
title_full_unstemmed | A multisensory mindfulness experience: exploring the promotion of sensory awareness as a mindfulness practice |
title_short | A multisensory mindfulness experience: exploring the promotion of sensory awareness as a mindfulness practice |
title_sort | multisensory mindfulness experience: exploring the promotion of sensory awareness as a mindfulness practice |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10666737/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38023042 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1230832 |
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