Relax App: designing mobile brain-computer interface app to reduce stress among students

Abstract

Students especially at universities undergo a lot of pressure and stress, and mental health is something that must not be taken lightly, especially at the time of pandemic as we are experiencing now. The need for us to look into the mental health is constantly reminded everywhere. There are a lot of ways to reduce stress such as meditation, getting involved in sports and one of the most practiced methods is by listening to music. Music has been indeed proved to have positive effects on humans and that it aids healing process such as binaural beats and Solfeggio frequency. These frequencies of music have impact towards the brainwave. This study reports on how the design thinking process was used to better identify the most suitable means on integrating mobile Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) as an application to know the impacts of different type of frequencies of music on the human brain to reduce stress. Besides suggesting a generic guideline to develop an application for mobile BCI, this study also provides us insights into the readiness of mobile BCI as an application for common usage.