Abstract
This long-term study examined relationships between solar and magnetic factors and the time course and lags of autonomic nervous system (ANS) responses to changes in solar and geomagnetic activity. Heart rate variability (HRV) was recorded for 72 consecutive hours each week over a five-month period in 16 participants in order to examine ANS responses during normal background environmental periods. HRV measures were correlated with solar and geomagnetic variables using multivariate linear regression analysis with Bonferroni corrections for multiple comparisons after removing circadian influences from both datasets. Overall, the study confirms that daily ANS activity responds to changes in geomagnetic and solar activity during periods of normal undisturbed activity and it is initiated at different times after the changes in the various environmental factors and persist over varying time periods. Increase in solar wind intensity was correlated with increases in heart rate, which we interpret as a biological stress response. Increase in cosmic rays, solar radio flux, and Schumann resonance power was all associated with increased HRV and parasympathetic activity. The findings support the hypothesis that energetic environmental phenomena affect psychophysical processes that can affect people in different ways depending on their sensitivity, health status and capacity for self-regulation.
Highlights
It appears that sharp or sudden variations in geomagnetic and solar activity as well as geomagnetic storms can act as stressors, which alter regulatory processes such as melatonin/serotonin balance[16,17,18], blood pressure, breathing, reproductive, immune, neurological, and cardiac system processes[19,20,21,22]
We found that ultralow frequency (ULF) power, which is related to magnetic field-line resonances, was positively correlated with solar wind speed, and indices of field disturbance was negatively correlated with cosmic ray counts which is consistent with the well-known inverse action of solar and geomagnetic activity and cosmic ray counts at the Earth’s surface[90]
This perspective is supported by the finding that increases in solar radio flux, cosmic rays and Schumann resonance power are all associated with increased Heart rate variability (HRV) and parasympathetic activity
Summary
It appears that sharp or sudden variations in geomagnetic and solar activity as well as geomagnetic storms can act as stressors, which alter regulatory processes such as melatonin/serotonin balance[16,17,18], blood pressure, breathing, reproductive, immune, neurological, and cardiac system processes[19,20,21,22]. A number of studies have observed an anticipatory reaction that can occur several days before the onset of a magnetic storm with significant alterations in participants’ blood pressure, HRV, heart rate, skin conductance and physiological symptoms[15,60,68,69,70,71]. This anticipatory reaction was first observed by Tchizhevsky and other scientists prior to the measurements of X-ray, and gigahertz frequency (f10.7) emissions from the sun. Stoupel et al have examined periods of low levels of geomagnetic disturbance combined with higher levels of cosmic ray activity and found there was a significant rise in emergency calls and overall deaths during these periods, with the most increases in cerebral strokes and sudden cardiac death suggesting that cosmic rays are an important factor affecting human medical events in elder populations[15,72,73]
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