Case Study

A Bio-Signal Ritual System for Embodied Well-Being

The paper was published at ACM-TEI 2026

Fall ’25  ·  8 weeks

BACKGROUND

Existing approaches each solve part of the problem. None of them solve the whole thing.

01
Calm app Talkspace app

Mental wellbeing apps

Offer generalized advice that rarely fits the specific moment stress actually hits.

Guided content Contextual relief
02
Fidget toys

Physical objects

Give tactile, sensory grounding in the moment, but can’t surface patterns or progress.

Sensory grounding Pattern insight
03
Wearable device Wearable device

Wearable biofeedback

Turns stress into a metric to manage, which can create more pressure than the relief it promises.

Biometric data Calming effect

OUR OPPORTUNITY

What if stress relief didn’t start with a screen, but with something you could hold in your hand?

INTRODUCING

Soma, a connected wellness ecosystem that helps people grow through their stress.

Hover over each step to see it in action →

Hand squeezing the SomaSeed Slow down moment Generate flower screen Garden screen
In the moment 01

Squeeze to ground yourself

Hold the SomaSeed. The pressure gives your body something to focus on while the storm passes.

Quietly captured 02

No effort required

Every squeeze is logged in the background. No forms, no check-ins, no extra weight on your mind.

End of day 03

Your day, in bloom

A digital flower grows from how you coped, shaped by your moments, your choices and how you cared for yourself.

Over time 04

A garden of patterns

Flowers collect into a living record. Instead of numbers, you see a story of resilience taking shape.

RESEARCH & IDEATION

11 interviews revealed that stress is messy, personal, and rarely solved by an app.

Three patterns showed up again and again. Click a participant to hear their story.

INSIGHT 01

Relief has to feel intuitive, not instructed.

“

Sometimes all I need is a small reset. A walk, a hot shower. I don’t want an app telling me how to feel.

– Jamie
WHAT WE LEARNED

When stress hits, people reach for what’s closest and most familiar. Relief is habitual, not prescribed. The system needs to sit alongside existing rituals, not replace them.

INSIGHT 02

Calming is sensory, and it’s deeply personal.

“

Calming music and plushies really help me decompress. My roommate needs total silence. We’re complete opposites.

– Priya
WHAT WE LEARNED

What grounds one person can overwhelm another. Silence soothes some; others need ambient noise, a scent, a texture. There’s no universal trigger, only personal ones.

INSIGHT 03

People want rituals, but life keeps breaking them.

“

I wish I had more time to take care of myself, but my weeks are packed. I fall off the wagon every other Tuesday.

– Marcus
WHAT WE LEARNED

Everyone talked about wanting structure: a wind-down, a check-in, a sleep schedule. But consistency collapses under deadlines. The system has to be forgiving, not punishing.

THE JOURNEY WE DESIGNED

A flow that meets people in the moment, then grows with them.

Hover any step to see what’s happening under the hood.

☀️
Morning

Day starts calm

Baseline. No intervention needed.
😕
Stress hits

Something throws you off

A trigger: a message, a meeting, a memory.
🥲
Instant relief

Squeeze the SomaSeed

Physical pressure. Sensory grounding. No screen needed.
😌
Micro-break

If still overwhelmed

Soma suggests a 90-second reset tailored to you.
😴
End of day

Release the weight

Plant your seed. Reflect on what helped, what didn’t.
🌼
Tomorrow

Lighter, more prepared

Your garden grows. Your patterns become visible.

DESIGNING THE OBJECT

Meet the SomaSeed, the part of the system you actually hold.

A tactile, squeezable seed that listens to your body and responds with light. It translates stress into something you can feel, not read.

WHAT IT SENSES

The seed is quietly reading your body.

Four micro-sensors in the shell pick up the signals your body gives off before you even notice them.

HOW IT RESPONDS

The seed translates signals into calm.

When it senses stress, the seed responds in four ways your body can feel, no screens required.

01
Breathing rate

Picked up from subtle pressure shifts as the shell flexes.

02
Heart rate

Read through contact with the palm.

03
Grip pressure

How tightly you’re holding on tells us how tense you are.

04
Skin response

Tiny moisture changes signal rising tension.

01
Pulsing glow

A slow rhythm your body instinctively syncs to.

02
Breath guidance

Light expands and contracts, leading your breath.

03
Warmth

Gentle heat where your palm meets the shell.

04
No screens

Nothing to read. Nothing to dismiss. Just something to hold.

CREATING THE APP

The Soma app surfaces what you need in the moment, and quietly learns your patterns over time.

No judgment, no scores. Just a calm, guided response that meets you where you are.

PART 01

When stress rises during the day

The app surfaces only what’s needed: a short calming sequence and suggested actions to find peace in the moment of stress, while quietly logging each squeeze to build patterns over time.

Soma app stress flow annotations Soma app stress flow annotations
PART 02

At the end of the day, when the SomaSeed returns to the terrarium

The app gently nudges you to reflect on your day and think about how you coped with its stresses. It’s about staying in touch with your emotions and facing them head-on, rather than sweeping them under the rug.

Soma end-of-day reflection annotations Soma end-of-day reflection annotations
PART 03

Bringing every moment of coping together to reveal a bigger picture

Over time, the system builds on the emotional language of each day. We introduced a garden view that shows every moment you’ve moved through, with different flowers standing for different stress patterns, so your progress feels more like something growing than something measured. And because AI summaries are never a complete picture, the app is upfront about it, giving you the option to revisit your full journal whenever you want.

Soma garden view and reflection annotations Soma garden view and reflection annotations

OUTCOMES

Testing gave us two things: validation, and a handful of new questions worth chasing.

I.

What landed

Three reactions kept coming up in different words: the emotional pull, the calm of the visual metaphor and the desire to share it with others.

“I would actually use something like this in my life.”
Participant 03 · on emotional fit
“The garden idea feels peaceful. It’s calming just to look at.”
Participant 05 · on the visual language
“I’d love to bring this into my therapy sessions.”
Participant 07 · on clinical value
II.

What comes next

The most interesting feedback wasn’t about what we’d built. It was about what people wished it could do.

Future direction

Predictive, not just reactive

Could the system spot patterns before a stress moment hits, and gently warn the user? A shift from logging to anticipating.

Future direction

Shared with the people who care

Multiple testers wanted a way to invite loved ones into their garden: a therapist, a parent, a partner. Coping, but connected.

Let's work
together?

or we can have a coffee chat ♡

ritikarramesh@gmail.com