Singing at 0.1 Hz as a Resonance Frequency Intervention to Reduce Cardiovascular Stress Reactivity?

Abstract

Slow breathing at 6 breaths per min (corresponding to ~ 0.1 Hz) has been found to benefit psychological and physical health. In this study, we aimed to examine if paced singing at 0.1 Hz has beneficial acute effects on physiological function as compared to slow breathing. Participants were randomized to one of four experimental interventions prior to performing a mental stress task: paced breathing at 0.1 Hz (n = 26), paced singing at 0.1 Hz (n = 26), spontaneous breathing (n = 24), or spontaneous singing (n = 25). Heart rate, heart rate variability in the low (LF-HRV) and high frequency (HF-HRV) domain, blood pressure and affective wellbeing were assessed. As expected, both paced breathing and paced singing resulted in elevated LF-HRV. Moreover, both singing groups evidenced increases in heart rate, blood pressure and positive affect, thus indicating elevated sympathetic activation. Breathing and singing at 0.1 Hz had no robust effect on cardiovascular stress reactivity. Findings suggest that paced singing could constitute a promising alternative to slow paced breathing as it increases cardiovascular coherence, although more studies are needed to elucidate whether slow breathing and/or singing could ameliorate acute stress responses.

The Real-Time Application of an Additional HRV Reduction Algorithm to Detect Negative Psychosocial States

“…Third, the tailoring of psychological variables to physiological regulation offers the potential to detect quite severe episodes of psychophysiological vulnerability, thus maximizing health benefits from JITAIs (Nahum-Shani et al, 2018). If the psychological situation does not meet the physiological state of demand (see, e.g., Lupien et al, 2022), we would suggest more physiologically focused intervention options such as slow-paced breathing (Tanzmeister et al, 2022; Tatschl & Schwerdtfeger, 2022) to restore autonomic function.…”