Articles

Analysis of Heart Rate Variability Acquired During Deep Breathing Using a Breathing Visualization Lamp System

Ryo KUWAMOTO, Chisa WATANABE, Sayuri SAKAI, Yoshinobu MAEDA
Vol. 13 (2024) p. 374-378

Mindfulness (MF) is a type of meditation, the purpose of which is to free the mind from anxiety about the future and regrets about the past. Usually with MF, a person counts the number of deep breaths taken and focuses their attention on experiencing the “present moment.” In practice, taking deep breaths is easy; however, it is difficult to achieve the effect; i.e., freeing the mind from wandering by reaching a mindful state, because it is very difficult to experience the present moment. What does it mean to experience the present moment? Phenomenologically, it is to be in a state in which “one feels to be here and now producing the reality, but also at the same time receiving the reality itself.” This is not simply taking deep breaths according to some externally generated rhythm, but means that the external rhythm itself should be generated through feedback from the deep breath. To this end, we investigated the possibility of supporting MF using a lamp system that brightens and darkens in sync with deep breathing, rather than using a lamp that mechanically switches from light to dark. The idea of this study is to support mindfulness by visualizing one’s own breathing. We evaluated whether the lamp system is beneficial for MF using the physiological index of heart rate variability and interview after the experiment.

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