Physiological impact of breathing on health and stress level
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56294/ri202346Keywords:
Breathing Pattern, Physiology, Breathing, Stress, Meditation, Heart Rate MonitorAbstract
Introduction: there are numerous publications comparing the results, of a group of people who practice a particular type of meditation for a certain period of time, called the evaluation group, with another group of people who do not meditate, commonly referred to as the control group, and statistics such as confidence intervals, "p" value, etc. are presented. On the impact of meditation on stress. While this work has had a great impact on a large number of people, there is still considerable disbelief, particularly in the academic and scientific world.
Methods: a prototype heart rate recorder was built using an Arduino UNO board and an AD8232 Heart Rate Monitor, which uses the ECG principle for its operation. An algorithm was implemented for the detection and calculation of RR time intervals, based on the analog signal coming from the AD8232 sensor.
Results: the frequency of the respiratory signal is higher than the frequency of the cardiac signal, in statistical terms, they are not correlated (correlation close to 0), while, on the right side, the frequencies of the two signals are similar (statistically, the correlation is close to 1), and in this case, it is said that the person acquires "cardiac coherence", or "coherent state". The 5-5 breathing pattern does not necessarily lead to this result. In addition to the breathing pattern used, the correlation between the respiratory and cardiac signal depends on other factors, related to the state of health and the level of stress.
Conclusions: from the understanding of the benefits achieved by adopting a particular breathing pattern, the reader is motivated to experience the transformative potential that this technique can have on his or her own organism. The aim is to encourage one's own experience of the effectiveness of these techniques and, in turn, to awaken interest in exploring deeper physiological changes that can be achieved through more advanced meditation practices, which can have a significant impact on health and stress management.
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Copyright (c) 2023 Dario R. Carestia, Andres F. Beltran, Francisco Cerdera, Marta L. Sanchez, Francisco Ibáñez (Author)
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