Exaggerated heart rate oscillations during two meditation techniques

We report extremely prominent heart rate oscillations associated with slow breathing during specific traditional forms of Chinese Chi and Kundalini Yoga meditation techniques in healthy young adults. We applied both spectral analysis and a novel analytic technique based on the Hilbert transform to q...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational journal of cardiology Vol. 70; no. 2; pp. 101 - 107
Main Authors Peng, C.-K, Mietus, Joseph E, Liu, Yanhui, Khalsa, Gurucharan, Douglas, Pamela S, Benson, Herbert, Goldberger, Ary L
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Shannon Elsevier Ireland Ltd 31.07.1999
Elsevier Science
Subjects
Adult
Athletes
Autonomic nervous system
Autonomic Nervous System - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Chi meditation
Electrocardiography, Ambulatory
Electrocardiography. Vectocardiography
Electrodiagnosis. Electric activity recording
Female
Fourier Analysis
Heart Rate - physiology
Hilbert transform
Homeostasis
Humans
Investigative techniques, diagnostic techniques (general aspects)
Male
Medical sciences
Meditation - methods
Middle Aged
Reference Values
Respiration
Sinus arrhythmia
Spectral analysis
Yoga
Hilbert transform
Autonomic nervous system
Homeostasis
Yoga
Chi meditation
Athletes
Respiration
Sinus arrhythmia
Spectral analysis
Human
Heart rate
Electrodiagnosis
Meditation
Variability
Young adult
Oscillation
Electrocardiography
Exploration
Technique
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Summary:We report extremely prominent heart rate oscillations associated with slow breathing during specific traditional forms of Chinese Chi and Kundalini Yoga meditation techniques in healthy young adults. We applied both spectral analysis and a novel analytic technique based on the Hilbert transform to quantify these heart rate dynamics. The amplitude of these oscillations during meditation was significantly greater than in the pre-meditation control state and also in three non-meditation control groups: i) elite athletes during sleep, ii) healthy young adults during metronomic breathing, and iii) healthy young adults during spontaneous nocturnal breathing. This finding, along with the marked variability of the beat-to-beat heart rate dynamics during such profound meditative states, challenges the notion of meditation as only an autonomically quiescent state.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0167-5273
1874-1754
DOI:10.1016/S0167-5273(99)00066-2