Meditation-Induced States, Vagal Tone, and Breathing Activity Are Related to Changes in Auditory Temporal Integration
by
Damisela Linares Gutierrez 1, Sebastian Kübel 1, Anne Giersch 2,3, Stefan Schmidt 4, Karin Meissner 5,6 and Marc Wittmann 1,*
Damisela Linares Gutierrez 1, Sebastian Kübel 1, Anne Giersch 2,3, Stefan Schmidt 4, Karin Meissner 5,6 and Marc Wittmann 1,*
1
Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health, 79098 Freiburg, Germany
2
INSERM U1114, 67091 Strasbourg, France
3
FMTS, Psychiatry Department, University Hospital of Strasbourg, 67200 Strasbourg, France
4
Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, Medical Center—University of Freiburg, 79104 Freiburg, Germany
5
Division of Integrative Health Promotion, Department of Social Work and Health, University of Applied Sciences, 96450 Coburg, Germany
6
Institute of Medical Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilian University Munich, 80336 Munich, Germany
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Behav. Sci. 2019, 9(5), 51; https://doi.org/10.3390/bs9050051
Received: 4 April 2019 / Revised: 4 May 2019 / Accepted: 5 May 2019 / Published: 7 May 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mind–Body Interventions for Psychological and Cognitive Benefits)
This study is based on the relationship between meditation, the present moment, and psychophysiology. We employed the metronome task to operationalize the extension of the present moment. A pre-post longitudinal study was conducted. The performance in the metronome task was compared before and after the interventions (meditation, story). The aim was to assess whether physiological changes (heart, breathing) during meditation influence the temporal-integration (TI) of metronome beats. Mindfulness meditators either meditated (n = 41) or listened to a story (n = 43). The heart and breathing activity were recorded during the intervention and compared to a resting-state condition. By applying path analyses we found that meditation led to an increase of the duration of integration intervals at the slowest metronome frequency (inter-stimulus interval, ISI = 3 s). After meditation, the higher the heart-rate variability (i.e., the root mean square of successive differences, RMSSD), the longer the duration of integration intervals at the fastest frequency (ISI = 0.33 s). Moreover, the higher the breathing rate during meditation, the greater the integration of intervals at ISI = 1 s. These findings add evidence to meditation-induced changes on the TI of metronome beats and the concept of the embodiment of mental functioning.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
mindfulness meditation; heart-rate variability; breathing rate; auditory temporal integration; present moment
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
- Supplementary File 1:
ZIP-Document (ZIP, 81 KB)
MDPI and ACS Style
Linares Gutierrez, D.; Kübel, S.; Giersch, A.; Schmidt, S.; Meissner, K.; Wittmann, M. Meditation-Induced States, Vagal Tone, and Breathing Activity Are Related to Changes in Auditory Temporal Integration. Behav. Sci. 2019, 9, 51.
Show more citation formats
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
Search more from Scilit
