Breath Free – Screening stress and anxiety from breathing pattern

Abstract

Stress and anxiety are two of the most common problems faced by many people which can affect a person’s breathing pattern and bad breathing causes more serious problems. Our product aims to detect early stress and anxiety using breathing as a vital sign.  After a lot of research, we found out that the best non-invasive way to measure a person’s breathing rate is by measuring their chest and belly expansion. To make our prototype compact and easy to wear we made two rectangular 3D Printed box like structures and fitted them with FSR sensors to measure the chest and belly expansion. It is a wireless device that connects with the computer via bluetooth dongle and sends the data serially. We are using a python program which collects the data and generates

 A4 size infographic report of the breathing that includes chest and belly breathing pattern, consistency and flow of breathing, breathing rate, number of deep, shallow and normal breaths.

While testing the device we found that the breathing pattern of working professionals engaged in stressful jobs is different from that of a school going kid. We have also tested our model for gaming activities to test the excitement and stress as it can affect our breathing. We found that breathing pattern and breathing rate changes while gaming and similarly in work culture, stressful jobs and environments affects our breathing pattern.

Dr. Ayushi Shah told us that stress and anxiety directly affect breathing patterns which leads to other problems due to lack of oxygen in the body and blood circulation. But it can be controlled by proper physical practices. Our device can be a breakthrough in implementing the same