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Investigating the Effects of Brief Diaphragmatic Breathing Training on Heart Rate Variability and Depressive Symptomatology
Hart, Haley
Hart, Haley
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Abstract
Background: Beat-to-beat variation in heart rate, or heart rate variability (HRV), is a biomarker of brain-cardiovascular system interactions that play an important role in physical health and well-being. High HRV indicates that the autonomic nervous system is characterized by adequate flexibility to adapt to environmental demands, while low HRV is associated with many states of disorder and disease. One means of temporarily altering HRV is the manipulation of breathing. While the research base evaluating lasting effects of short-term daily diaphragmatic breathing practice is sparse, there exist both theoretical and empirical grounds for suspecting that brief breathing-based interventions might yield meaningful HRV changes. Evidence of the link between HRV and depressive symptoms suggests that manipulation of HRV may also exert some beneficial effects on psychological wellbeing. Objective: This study seeks to investigate the degree to which two weeks of twice-daily brief diaphragmatic breathing (DB) exercise may improve baseline HRV and various psychological measures. Specifically, this thesis focuses on three questions: (a) does the low-dose DB training and practice induce improvements in self-reported depressive symptomatology?; (b) does the DB training and practice induce potentially durable improvements in measured HRV?; and (c) do such changes in HRV mediate any potential effects of the breathing intervention on depressive symptoms? Methods: The proposed study procedure consists of three parts over 16 consecutive days. The three phases include an initial session with DB or gratitude control training, a 14-day at-home practice and reporting period, and a debrief session. Primary outcomes include HRV measures and PHQ-8 scores. General linear mixed effects regression modeling was conducted to examine the relationships between treatment condition, HRV, and PHQ-8 over time. Results: Primary analyses found no statistically significant time-by-condition interactions to support a differential effect of low-dose DB in reducing HRV (rMSSD) or depressive symptoms (PHQ-8). However, participants with low baseline HRV in the DB group experienced significant improvements in rMSSD (80% improvement, d = 1.601, p = 0.012). Significant reductions in self-reported depressive symptomatology following DB practice were also found in the full sample (20% improvement, d = 0.295, p = 0.002) and the Depressive subgroup (30% improvement, d = 0.496, p < 0.001). No significant associations between HRV and depressive symptomatology were observed in the present investigation. Conclusion: The present findings support the need for further investigations into the hypotheses that low-dose DB training may help reduce depressive symptoms in individuals with and without baseline elevations in PHQ-8, and it may also improve HRV in individuals with low baseline HRV. Because the study yielded no significant time-by-condition interaction effects, the observed improvements with low-dose DB may not be superior to the beneficial effects of the study’s Gratitude control condition.
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Date
2022-12-31
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University of Kansas
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Keywords
Clinical psychology, Psychology, Psychobiology, Depressive Symptomatology, Diaphragmatic Breathing, Heart Rate Variability, HRV