Neuro-rehabilitation and neuro-empowerment by wearable devices. Applications to well-being and stress management

Supporting mental training practice with non-invasive wearable technologies is a hot topic in applied research on the promotion of well-being and self-enhancement. To test the potential for strengthening stress management skills of an intensive neurofeedback-supported mindfulness protocol, we devised a longitudinal controlled trial. Statistical comparison of training-induces changes of subjective and psychophysiological measures of stress highlighted both a significant reduction of subjectively perceived stress and a consistent increase of cardiovascular correlates of vagal tone in the experimental group with respect to the active control group.