Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2005; 10: 10–1
Meditation in its various forms is a traditional exercise with a potential benefit to well-being and health. Here we investigated the impact of meditation on cardiorespiratory synchronisation with respect to breathing oscillations and the modulations of heart rate induced by respiration (respiratory sinus arrhythmia, RSA).
Four different exercises (spontaneous breathing, mental task, Zen meditation and Kinhin meditation) were consecutively performed by nine subjects mainly without any experience in meditation. An electrocardiogram and a respiratory trace were recorded simultaneously. On this basis the degree of cardiorespiratory synchronisation was quantified by a technique adopted from the analysis of weakly coupled chaotic oscillators.
Both types of Zen meditation showed a high degree of synchronisation whereas heartbeat and respiration were hardly synchronised during spontaneous breathing. During the mental task exercise the extent of synchronisation was slightly higher than during spontaneous breathing. These results were largely determined by the breathing frequency because the two types of meditation induce low breathing frequencies, which led to a pronounced and in-phase RSA. During the meditation the low breathing frequencies led to a decrease in the high frequency of heart rate variability whereas the low frequency and the extent of RSA increased.
The heart rate primarily reflected the degree of physical effort. The high degree of cardiorespiratory synchronisation during meditation in inexperienced meditators suggests that the physiological implications of meditation do not require prior experience in meditation.
