4-Square Meditation Exercise

For this project, we will be building a respiration-sensor belt to monitor inhalations and exhalations during meditative breathing. This project is based off the “4-Square” breath exercise often used in beginner yoga and meditation. 4-Square breathing paces the lengths of the inhalations, pauses between breaths, and exhalations so that all breath components are equal length (usually 4 seconds each). The belt sensor and associated program create an interface to allow the user to see the pacing of their breath and provide a guide to help the user achieve balanced breathing.

For this project, you will need:

• Arduino Uno
• Rubber Conductive Cord
• Duct tape
• Sewing Thread
• Sewing Needle and/or a Sewing Machine
• Elastic belt (from a runner’s pack- you can find a cheap one here)
• Mini Breadboard
• 10 kΩ resistors (3)
• Circuit wires
• Alligator Clips
• Scissors or an Exacto-knife

On your mini breadboard, construct a circuit as shown in the diagram above, with alligator clips connecting the rubber conductive cord to the circuit in place of the photocell. For the original circuit, three 10 kΩ resistors were used in parallel to yield a resistance of 3.3 kΩ, however, you can use a single resistor of comparable resistance.

To build the belt, you will need Velcro, thread, a needle, duct tape, scissors, and an elastic runner’s belt.

First, we will build the centerpiece of the belt, which will hold the conductive cord. Start by taking strips of duct tape (8” to 10” inches long) and layering them, as seen in the photo above. As you layer the strips of duct tape, leave approximately ½ inch of duct tape exposed. This will enable you to add more layers until you achieve a width of approximately 6 inches.

After you have layered your duct tape, fold in the remaining tabs, as indicated by the arrows. Now you should have a piece of duct tape that is around 6 inches wide and 10 inches long.

Once you have your piece of duct tape layered and folded, use either scissors or an Exacto-knife to cut 1-inch slits across one side of the duct tape, as shown above. These cuts will secure the conductive cord in place.

After cutting the slits, fold the duct tape strip in half, length-wise. Tape over the corners of the strip to secure the fold.

Once you have finished with the middle piece of the belt, grab your elastic running belt and cut off the middle pouch. After doing this, you should have two pieces of elastic belt that are able to clip into each other, as seen above.

With your centerpiece made of duct tape and your elastic belt bands ready, it is now time to sew these components together! The easiest way to do this is with a sewing machine, but a simple needle and thread can also get the job done.

Sew one side of elastic belt band to one end of the duct tape piece and sew the other side of the elastic belt band to the other end of the duct tape piece. Be sure to overlap the elastic band and the duct tape at least 1 inch to ensure a secure connection. After you are done sewing, your duct tape center should have the elastic band connected to it on both ends, as shown in the picture above.

(If you are having issues getting accurate outputs when testing, use extra duct tape to decrease the amount of elasticity in the band and place the conductive rubber band over the most mobile part of the band.)

Now that the belt is finished, make sure that all of the wiring is still in tact, as it was when building the circuit and the belt. Plug the Arduino Uno into your computer and ensure you have the proper application to run the Arduino IDE. You can then write your own program to run the 4-Square Meditation exercise, or use the open-source code linked here.

Try out the device and practice the meditation exercise. A video demo is shown below.