Open AccessA preliminary study of the comfort of paced respiration [Note 1. Part of this article was presented at the 23rd ...]
Author(s) -
Sawada Yukihiro
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
japanese psychological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.392
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5884
pISSN - 0021-5368
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5884.00137
Subject(s) - respiration , vagal tone , heart rate , psychology , tidal volume , respiratory system , respiratory rate , anxiety , anesthesia , medicine , heart rate variability , blood pressure , anatomy , psychiatry
In order to obtain basal information about what type of externally paced respiration is comfortable, 25 male and 25 female undergraduate students were asked to practice self‐paced respiration. After a 1‐min rehearsal following instructions on comfortable self‐paced respiration, subjects carried out 2 min of self‐paced respiration and rated their level of comfort on a scale of 1–5. This was repeated (up to a maximum of seven times) until the subject recorded a high rating. Results indicated that self‐paced respiration was most comfortable, irrespective of sex, when a respiratory pattern was attained of half the respiratory rate and nearly twice the tidal volume of the trainee's resting condition. Although respiratory sinus arrhythmia and heart rate were indicative of a decrease in cardiac vagal activity and end‐tidal PCO 2 was suggestive of a reduction in anxiety, these effects were small. The results have implications for the utilization of externally paced respiration.