Meditative Breathing Yields Inconclusive Results in Stabilizing Physiological Variables Following Fear-Induced Acute Stress in College Students
Date
2015Author
Cooper, Trevor
Hedrick, Jessica
Murphy, Brianna
Reil, Lauren
Sayaovang, Katie
Thomas, Taylor
Publisher
Journal of Advanced Student Sciences (JASS)
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Many universities have turned to meditation and breathing exercises as a potential means
to help students manage acute and chronic stress. We hypothesized that performing a short
breathing exercise immediately after watching a horror clip would return physiological indicators
of stress (including heart rate, electrodermal activity, and blood pressure) back to pre-video
baseline levels faster than a control group who did not perform the meditation, as measured in
university students. This was based on a rationale that a focused breathing exercise can increase
parasympathetic activity and lower levels of cortisol and adrenocorticotropic hormone. The
hypothesis was tested by having participants watch a short horror clip followed by a period of
either a guided breathing exercise (experimental) or rest (control) while heart rate, electrodermal
activity (EDA), respiration, and blood pressure were measured. No significant differences
between the experimental and control group were supported, as p-values obtained from t-tests
performed for all measurements were above a significance level of 0.05. With further study, we
believe that significant data could be obtained supporting the idea that meditation can help
relieve stress in college students.
Subject
acute stress
anticipation
anxiety
autonomic nervous system
blood pressure
electrodermal activity
galvanic skin response
guided meditation
stress mitigation
sympathetic nervous system
Permanent Link
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/80162Description
An article that appeared in JASS, issue 2015