Abstract
Breathing techniques are part of traditional relaxation methods; however, their influence on psychophysiological variables related to sleep is still unclear. Consequently, the aim of this paper was to investigate the influence of a 30-day slow-paced breathing intervention compared to social media use on subjective sleep quality and cardiac vagal activity (CVA, operationalized via high-frequency heart rate variability). Healthy participants (n = 64, 33 male, 31 female, M = 22.11, SD = 3.12) were randomly allocated to an experimental or control group. In the experimental group, they had to perform slow-paced breathing for 15 min each evening across a 30-day period. This was administered through a smartphone application. The control group used social media (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp) for the same duration. The night before and after the intervention, their CVA was assessed via a light portable Electrocardiogram (ECG) device, and they had to fill out the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index questionnaire. Results showed that in comparison to the use of social media, the slow-paced breathing technique improved subjective sleep quality and increased overnight CVA, while a tendency was observed for morning awakening CVA. Slow-paced breathing appears a promising cost-effective technique to improve subjective sleep quality and cardiovascular function during sleep in young healthy individuals.
Highlights
Issues with sleep are a pressing concern for individuals, given they directly impact life quality and represent a risk factor at several levels [1]
This paper is aimed to investigate the influence of a slow-paced breathing intervention on subjective sleep quality and on a psychophysiological variable linked to relaxation states, cardiac vagal activity (CVA), which reflects the activity of the vagus nerve regulating cardiac functioning [3,4,5]
Concerning simple main effects for condition, there was no significant difference between the conditions at pre-test, t(62) = 0.449, p = 0.655, d = 0.11, but there was a tendency for a difference between the conditions at post-test (i.e., Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) score lower for the experimental group in comparison to the control group), t(62) = 2.481, p = 0.016, d = 0.62
Summary
Issues with sleep are a pressing concern for individuals, given they directly impact life quality and represent a risk factor at several levels [1]. Breathing techniques are part of traditional methods used to improve sleep [2]; their influence on psychophysiological variables related to sleep is still unclear. This paper is aimed to investigate the influence of a slow-paced breathing intervention on subjective sleep quality and on a psychophysiological variable linked to relaxation states, cardiac vagal activity (CVA), which reflects the activity of the vagus nerve regulating cardiac functioning [3,4,5]. One of the main hypothesis regarding the cause of sleep disturbances is that they may be associated with a state of hyperarousal [6,7]. Methods aiming to decrease a state of hyperarousal usually target an activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, and of its main nerve, the vagus nerve [8,9]. One way to do so is to use slow-paced breathing [10,11,12,13]
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