Effects of Voluntary Slow Breathing on Vagally-Mediated Heart Rate Variability: A Systematic Review

Abstract To date, there is no quantitative review examining the influence of heart rate variability biofeedback (HRV BFB) on the athlete population. Such an undertaking may provide valuable information on the autonomic and respiration responses of athletes when performing HRV BFB. Thus, purpose of this preliminary systematic review and meta-analysis on the effects of HRV BFB on HRV and respiration of athletes. Searches of Springerlink, SportDiscus, Web of Science, PROQUEST Academic Research Library, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect were conducted for studies that met the following criteria: (1) experimental studies involving athletes that underwent randomized control trial; (2) availability of HRV BFB as a treatment compared with a control (CON)/placebo (PLA); (3) any pre and post HRV variable and/or breathing frequency as dependent variable/s; and, (4) peer-reviewed articles written in English. Four out of 660 studies involving 115 athletes (25 females and 90 males) ages 16–30 years old were assessed in this review. Preliminary findings suggest the promising ability of HRV BFB to improve respiratory mechanics in athlete population. More work is needed to determine the autonomic modulatory effect of HRV BFB in athletes.

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Smart Devices and Wearable Technologies to Detect and Monitor Mental Health Conditions and Stress: A Systematic Review

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s21103461 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (10) ◽

pp. 3461

Author(s):

Blake Anthony Hickey ◽

Taryn Chalmers ◽

Phillip Newton ◽

Chin-Teng Lin ◽

David Sibbritt ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Systematic Review ◽

Heart Rate ◽

Heart Rate Variability ◽

Electrodermal Activity ◽

Smart Devices ◽

Stress Detection ◽

Wearable Technologies ◽

Detection Of Stress ◽

Anxiety Depression

Recently, there has been an increase in the production of devices to monitor mental health and stress as means for expediting detection, and subsequent management of these conditions. The objective of this review is to identify and critically appraise the most recent smart devices and wearable technologies used to identify depression, anxiety, and stress, and the physiological process(es) linked to their detection. The MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cochrane Central, and PsycINFO databases were used to identify studies which utilised smart devices and wearable technologies to detect or monitor anxiety, depression, or stress. The included articles that assessed stress and anxiety unanimously used heart rate variability (HRV) parameters for detection of anxiety and stress, with the latter better detected by HRV and electroencephalogram (EGG) together. Electrodermal activity was used in recent studies, with high accuracy for stress detection; however, with questionable reliability. Depression was found to be largely detected using specific EEG signatures; however, devices detecting depression using EEG are not currently available on the market. This systematic review highlights that average heart rate used by many commercially available smart devices is not as accurate in the detection of stress and anxiety compared with heart rate variability, electrodermal activity, and possibly respiratory rate.

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Effect of Acupuncture on Heart Rate Variability: A Systematic Review

Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine ◽

10.1155/2014/819871 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 2014 ◽

pp. 1-19 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Joanne W. Y. Chung ◽

Vincent C. M. Yan ◽

Hongwei Zhang

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Heart Rate ◽

Heart Rate Variability ◽

High Frequency ◽

Healthy Subjects ◽

Keyword Search ◽

Data Extraction ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Low Frequency ◽

Control Group

Aim.To summarize all relevant trials and critically evaluate the effect of acupuncture on heart rate variability (HRV).Method.This was a systematic review with meta-analysis. Keyword search was conducted in 7 databases for randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Data extraction and risk of bias were done.Results.Fourteen included studies showed a decreasing effect of acupuncture on low frequency (LF) and low frequency to high frequency ratio (LF/HF ratio) of HRV for nonhealthy subjects and on normalized low frequency (LF norm) for healthy subjects. The overall effect was in favour of the sham/control group for high frequency (HF) in nonhealthy subjects and for normalized high frequency (HF norm) in healthy subjects. Significant decreasing effect on HF and LF/HF ratio of HRV when acupuncture was performed on ST36 among healthy subjects and PC6 among both healthy and nonhealthy subjects, respectively.Discussion.This study partially supports the possible effect of acupuncture in modulating the LF of HRV in both healthy and nonhealthy subjects, while previous review reported that acupuncture did not have any convincing effect on HRV in healthy subjects. More published work is needed in this area to determine if HRV can be an indicator of the therapeutic effect of acupuncture.

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