The measurement of heart rate variability (HRV) is often considered a convenient non-invasive assessment tool for monitoring individual adaptation to training. Decreases and increases in vagal-derived indices of HRV have been suggested to indicate negative and positive adaptations, respectively, to endurance training regimens. However, much of the research in this area has involved recreational and well-trained athletes, with the small number of studies conducted in...

BackgroundSudarshana Kriya Yoga (SKY) has demonstrable antidepressant effects. SKY was tested for this effect in inpatients of alcohol dependence.MethodsFollowing a week of detoxification management consenting subjects (n = 60) were equally randomized to receive SKY therapy or not (controls) for a two-week study. SKY therapy included alternate day practice of specified breathing exercise under supervision of a trained therapist. Subjects completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) before...

Examined the efficacy of Sudarshan Kriya Yoga (SKY) in treating 46 male 18–46 yr old hospital outpatients with dysthymia. The patients practiced SKY 30 min every day for 3 mo, and avoided any medication. Patients were assessed initially and at 1- & 3-mo with interviews, video rating and self-report scales. In a subsample of 12 patients, plasma prolactin and cortisol levels were obtained before and...

Yoga is thought to reduce stress; however, few studies have quantified plasma levels of stress hormones. Yoga includes physical postures, meditation, and pranayama (controlled breathing) therefore it is difficult to determine which dose and combination of these components is most beneficial. We hypothesized that a single 15 min bout of 6 breaths per minute would be sufficient to cause a reduction in stress hormones. Ten...

Given the limited success of conventional treatments for veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), investigations of alternative approaches are warranted. We examined the effects of a breathing‐based meditation intervention, Sudarshan Kriya yoga, on PTSD outcome variables in U.S. male veterans of the Iraq or Afghanistan war. We randomly assigned 21 veterans to an active (n = 11) or waitlist control (n = 10) group. Laboratory...

This article reports two studies investigating the relationship between emotional feelings and respiration. In the first study, participants were asked to produce an emotion of either joy, anger, fear or sadness and to describe the breathing pattern that fit best with the generated emotion. Results revealed that breathing patterns reported during voluntary production of emotion were (a) comparable to those objectively recorded in psychophysiological experiments...

At times, people keep their emotions from showing during social interactions. The authors' analysis suggests that such expressive suppression should disrupt communication and increase stress levels. To test this hypothesis, the authors conducted 2 studies in which unacquainted pairs of women discussed an upsetting topic. In Study 1, one member of each pair was randomly assigned to (a) suppress her emotional behavior, (b) respond naturally,...

We report on an empirical study where we cut off email usage for five workdays for 13 information workers in an organization. We employed both quantitative measures such as computer log data and ethnographic methods to compare a baseline condition (normal email usage) with our experimental manipulation (email cutoff). Our results show that without email, people multitasked less and had a longer task focus, as...

Alarm substances are airborne chemical signals, released by an individual into the environment, which communicate emotional stress between conspecifics. Here we tested whether humans, like other mammals, are able to detect emotional stress in others by chemosensory cues. Sweat samples collected from individuals undergoing an acute emotional stressor, with exercise as a control, were pooled and presented to a separate group of participants (blind to...

Competing theoretical models and equivocal evidence leave unanswered questions regarding stressors’ effect on creativity. The present meta-analysis of 76 experimental studies (including 82 independent samples) aims to clarify this association and identify factors that may explain differences between studies. Our results suggest that the effect of stressors on creative performance depends on how stress-inducing the stressor is and what type of stress is induced. We...