Strategies of arousal control: Biofeedback, meditation, and motivation.

Abstract

A series of four experiments assessed the effects of instructions to lower heart rate on heart rate change and general arousal reduction. Various conditions of biofeedback, cognitive load, incentive, knowledge of results, and the experimenter-subject relationship were tested. Experiment 1 compared physiological responses to the delivery of direct organ feedback (i.e., heart rate) with responses to electromyographic biofeedback from the frontalis muscle area and with responses to a nonfeedback tracking task. The results suggest that neither heart rate nor muscle tension feedback is an especially powerful method for achieving sustained reductions in heart rate. Furthermore, although some specificity of physiologic pattern is apparent, biofeedback is no more effective in lowering general activation level than simple instructions to relax accompanied by a general knowledge of results. The second experiment was designed to assess the role of cognitive load in arousal reduction. Heart rate biofeedback was compared with a procedure involving minimal external information processing--the secular meditation exercise of Wallace and Benson. The results indicated a clear superiority for the meditation strategy in effecting reductions in cardiac rate and lowering activation. However, in a third experiment, meditation subjects lowered heart rate much less than observed in the previous study, and this time the reduction did not exceed that achieved by feedback subjects. Subsequent analysis suggested that the quality of the subject-experimenter relationship (active-supportive vs. formal-distant) was a significant variable in accounting for outcome differences. The above hypothesis was supported by a fourth experiment. Under conditions of high subject-experimenter involvement, the superior meditation performance of Experiment 2 was reproduced; under low-involvement conditions the Experiment 3 result of no difference between training groups was obtained. The findings suggest that the effectiveness of any method for achieving relaxation (or physiological control) rests on a complex interaction between informational and motivational imperatives of the stimulus context and definable aspects of the interpersonal exchange between subject and experimenter. This research raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the usual biofeedback paradigm as an aid to arousal reduction and the cost efficiency of its applications in the clinical situation. Furthermore, these results demonstrate the great power in relaxation experiments of psychosocial and other moderator variables, and signal the practical difficulty of their control when these variables appear to be as potent in changing physiology as the primary training methods.

Yoga as an Adjunctive Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

“…16 Changing breathing patterns can influence autonomic nervous system functions, including heart rate variability and cardiac vagal tone. 23,26,30,31 The extensive research on the effects of mindfulness meditation has been demonstrated to positively influence numerous psychiatric, psychosomatic, and stress-related symptoms, including anxiety, depression, chronic pain, immune function, blood pressure, cortisol levels, and telomerase activity. [22][23][24]53 Of the 3 principal components of yoga, the various poses (asanas) have been least studied.…”

“…25 Yoga is a comprehensive system of practices that incorporates physical postures, breathing exercises, and meditation/concentration techniques that have been shown to be associated with changes in autonomic function, muscle strength, blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, plasma cortisol, urinary catecholamines, and improvement in arousal regulation. [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] Yoga has been studied as an effective adjunctive treatment for a large variety of medical disorders, including asthma, heart disease and hypertension, diabetes, chronic pain, arthritis, and insomnia. 27,29,[40][41][42][43][44][45] Other studies also have demonstrated positive effects of yoga on depression and anxiety [46][47][48][49] and on acute stress reactions.…”

A comparison of biofeedback-assisted cardiodeceleration in type A and B men: modification of stress-associated cardiopulmonary and hemodynamic adjustments.

“…The methodologic differences of previous work, such as the type of feedback used (19) and the lack of appropriate control groups (20)(21)(22), have resulted in inconsistent findings that call into question the empirical reliability of this phenomenon. Furthermore, when biofeedback-assisted HR attenuations are found, the changes are either generally small and variable (19) or represent reductions from relatively high basal HR levels (21). Indeed, in session one of this experiment, the bradycardia experienced by Type Bs was reliable, but small.…”

“…Collectively, these data suggest that there may be an initial values effect (23), indicating that an inherent physiologic constraint is operating on the response system at rest (24). In this connection, Cuthbert and associates (21) reported that subjects with an initially high HR level, coupled with self-reports of high anxiety symptoms, performed better on a HR deceleratory biofeedback task than did subjects with low anxiety or baseline HR levels. These and other data have generated increasing interest in the study of specific individual difference variables that modulate the ability to control HR.…”

Relaxation Training Techniques — A Review Part Two: How Effective is Relaxation Training?

“…A selection of these appear in the references. 22,23,[32][33][34][35] CONCLUSION A variety of studies and information evaluating different relaxation techniques has been discussed. No firm conclusions regarding the superior effectiveness of anyone technique over another can confidently be drawn.…”