The Utility of Heart Rate Variability in Mindfulness Research

Christodoulou, Georgia; Salami, Neda; Black, David S.

doi:10.1007/s12671-019-01296-3

Cited by 34 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Heart rate variability and biofeedback. Heart rate variability (HRV) is a physiological measure of time between heart beats in response to stimulation from the vagus nerve, a major branch of the parasympathetic nervous system (Christodoulou & Black, 2020). The incoherence between heart beats across time reflects a desynchronization between the two autonomic nervous system branches, the sympathetic (fight/flight/ freeze) and parasympathetic (rest/tend/digest) systems, resulting in an overall disruption in neural signals between the prefrontal cortex (and other executive functioning centres of the brain) and heart (Bradley et al, 2010).…”

Section: Understanding Test Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effectiveness of Social-Emotional Learning Strategies and Mindful Breathing with Biofeedback on the Reduction of Adolescent Test Anxiety

McLeod

Boyes²

2021

CJE/RCE

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Educational programs that incorporate social emotional-learning (SEL) strategies, study skills, and mindful breathing using biofeedback can help adolescents decrease worry and social stress, increase test preparedness self-efficacy, and improve academic performance due to lowered levels of test anxiety. The current study examined the efficacy of a SEL intervention (implemented into a high school psychology course) focused on study skills and mindful breathing and its impact on student attitude and behavioural changes (e.g., test anxiety, self-efficacy), academic performance, and physical changes. A quasi-experimental explanatory mixed methods study conducted at a rural Alberta high school examined pre- and post-intervention results between two groups of Grades 9–12 students (N = 105) with one group receiving the intervention (mindful breathing sessions, emotional regulation techniques, study and test-taking skills, and coping strategies) while the other received regular programming. Quantitative data included a Test Anxiety Survey (TAS), Student Opinion Survey–Short Form (SOS-SF), and reading comprehension (RC) tests to measure attitude and behavioural changes, followed by qualitative data obtained from student semi-structured interviews and focus groups for further interpretation. Quantitative results from repeated-measures (RM) ANOVAs indicated significant increases in self-efficacy for preparation and test-taking, increased academic achievement, decreased worry about future social stress, and increased positive affect. Effect sizes for significant impacts ranged from .45 to .65. Qualitative data indicated that students acquired new SEL strategies to help them handle stressful test situations more effectively. The current study addresses topics of interest to educators (e.g., test anxiety, social emotional learning) with a discussion of applications for extension and development of the program in junior and senior high classrooms. Keywords: test anxiety, adolescents, social-emotional learning, mindfulness, biofeedback

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Section: Understanding Test Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effectiveness of Social-Emotional Learning Strategies and Mindful Breathing with Biofeedback on the Reduction of Adolescent Test Anxiety

McLeod

Boyes²

2021

CJE/RCE

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“…There have been some, but limited, research (for reviews see [16,17]) showing that mindfulness exerts beneficial effects on the cardiovascular system [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. The majority of these studies have focused on acute changes from being in a 'mindful state', while some studies cited above have investigated changes in resting baseline HRV between long-term mindfulness practitioners and novices (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heart rate variability is enhanced during mindfulness practice: A randomized controlled trial involving a 10-day online-based mindfulness intervention

Kirk

Axelsen

2020

PLoS ONE

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Objectives The goal of the present study was to probe the effects of mindfulness practice in a naturalistic setting as opposed to a lab-based environment in the presence of continuous heart rate variability (HRV) measurements. The specific experimental goals were to examine the effects of a brief 10-day online-based mindfulness intervention on both chronic and acute HRV responses. Method We conducted a fully randomized 10-day longitudinal trial of mindfulness practice, explicitly controlling for practice effects with an active-control group (music listening) and a non-intervention control group. To assess chronic cardiovascular effects, we asked participants in the 3 groups to complete 2-day HRV pre- and post-intervention measurement sessions. Using this experimental setup enabled us to address training effects arising from mindfulness practice to assess physiological impact on daytime as well as nighttime (i.e. assessing sleep quality) on the underlying HRV response. To assess acute cardiovascular effects, we measured HRV in the 2 active intervention groups during each of the 10 daily mindfulness or music sessions. This allowed us to track the development of purported training effects arising from mindfulness practice relative to the active-control intervention in terms of changes in the HRV slope over the 10-day time-course. Results Firstly, for the acute phase we found increased HRV during the daily practice sessions in both the mindfulness and active-control group indicating that both interventions were effective in decreasing acute physiological stress. Secondly, for the chronic phase we found increased HRV in both the day- and nighttime indicating increased sleep quality, specifically in the mindfulness group. Conclusion These results suggest causal effects in both chronic and acute phases of mindfulness practice in formerly naïve subjects and provides support for the argument that brief online-based mindfulness interventions exert positive impact on HRV.

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“…In addition to cognitive and emotion regulation, there is emerging evidence that mindfulness acts on autonomic biological systems. Research in this area is nascent, and some authors have expressed caution about the quality of studies and variability of objective biomarker measurements (Christodoulou et al, 2020;Rådmark et al, 2019). Nonetheless, a recent meta-analysis of randomized control trials has found that mindfulness training reliably decreases physiological markers of stress, resulting in lower cortisol, heart rate, blood pressure, and cytokine levels (Pascoe et al, 2017).…”

Section: How Does Mindfulness Work?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking Homeostatically Protected Mood, Mindfulness, and Depression: A Conceptual Synthesis and Model ofMoodfulness

Lyall

Mikocka‐Walus

Evans

et al. 2021

Review of General Psychology

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Mindfulness is an ancient practice, derived from Buddhism and recently adapted for the treatment of depression and other psychological conditions. The mechanism of action is thought to involve the extinction of habitual or conditioned responses to internal cognitive and emotional content. In turn, this relies on mechanisms of attentional control and emotion regulation. The resulting state of consciousness is sometimes described as equanimity. This conceptual review paper explores the process of achieving equanimity within a homeostatic framework. The result is a model of moodfulness, which combines mindfulness with Homeostatically Protected Mood to provide a new theoretical view of recovery from symptoms of depression. This model presents a case for mindfulness restoration of mood homeostasis following homeostatic defeat.

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The Utility of Heart Rate Variability in Mindfulness Research

Cited by 34 publications

References 41 publications

The Effectiveness of Social-Emotional Learning Strategies and Mindful Breathing with Biofeedback on the Reduction of Adolescent Test Anxiety

The Effectiveness of Social-Emotional Learning Strategies and Mindful Breathing with Biofeedback on the Reduction of Adolescent Test Anxiety

Heart rate variability is enhanced during mindfulness practice: A randomized controlled trial involving a 10-day online-based mindfulness intervention

Linking Homeostatically Protected Mood, Mindfulness, and Depression: A Conceptual Synthesis and Model ofMoodfulness

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