Breath of Life: A Biofeedback Game with Diverse Breathing Techniques for Enhanced Real-Life Emotion Regulation

Mental health is a critical public health concern, with emotion regulation (ER) playing a pivotal role in maintaining and improving psychological well-being. While respiratory biofeedback games have emerged as effective tools for ER training, existing research predominantly focuses on single-session interventions with limited techniques, emphasizing short-term skill transfer in simulated environments. This approach has led to a significant gap in understanding the long-term application of these techniques in real-life contexts, which is essential for designing effective ER training games. To address this gap, we developed a biofeedback game incorporating four distinct breathing techniques and conducted a 10-week longitudinal study with 25 participants. After one week of training, the majority of participants demonstrated successful transfer of breathing techniques to real-life scenarios. Our findings provide actionable design insights for promoting long-term skill transfer and highlight the potential of respiratory biofeedback games as sustainable tools for emotion regulation training.