PURPOSE:The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of ten minutes of manual passive exercise performed by physical therapists on autonomic nervous system. METHODS:Thirty-five healthy adults, both male and female, were chosen as subjects for this study. The autonomic nervous system was measured by heart rate variability (HRV),before and after passive exercise using the following measurements: mean heart rate (mean HRT), low frequency (LF) and high frequency (HF) components, the LF/HF ratio, root mean square of the successive differences (RMSSD), and the HRV index. The exercise was performed on the subjects