Conception and implementation of a mobile application to conduct a Mindful Walking Study regarding Clinical Psychology

Mindfulness is a common concept spread across many cultures. The basic idea is to focus on usually automated body processes and hence feel more present in the moment. It is assumed that mindfulness could be very beneficial in certain areas such as medicine or therapy methods in general. “Reducing stress-related symptomatology” and “helping patients cope with chronic pain” are just a few upsides that come with mindfulness-based approaches. A more specific form of mindfulness is Mindful Walking where the focus is on doing one step at a time very consciously during a normal outdoor or indoor walk. This should strengthen the feeling of being present in a moment even more by just focussing on each step during the very common process of walking. The application presented in this paper should function as a supporting tool when walking mindfully using the combined data gathered by an Apple iPhone and an Apple Watch. It should also provide the possibility for a user to participate in a study of Mindful Walking and thus to contribute to research with the purpose of finding out whether Mindful Walking might be helpful to people in their daily lives.