Title: Assessment of meditation effects using heart rate variability analysis

Authors: Aboli N. Londhe; Mithilesh Atulkar

Addresses: Department of Computer Applications, National Institute of Technology Raipur, Raipur-492010, Chhattisgarh, India ' Department of Computer Applications, National Institute of Technology Raipur, Raipur-492010, Chhattisgarh, India

Abstract: Meditation is claimed to regularise the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and causes reduced metabolic movement, inciting physical and mental relaxation. It is being looked upon as the future integrative means of improving quality of life. The most accessible organ for the assessment of ANS activities is the heart and its oscillations. The heart rate variability (HRV) analysis has emerged as a successful non-invasive method that elucidates changes of sympathetic and vagal activity. The alternations of a heart are complex and constantly changing, which allows the cardiovascular system to rapidly adjust to sudden physical and psychological changes. In this paper, the exhaustive overview of HRV analysis attempts for evaluating meditation effects is presented. Moreover, HRV metrics, their clinical significance, applications and reported usefulness in meditation assessment are presented. The variations in HRV have been analysed using both linear and nonlinear parameters for both meditators and non-meditators. The effects of two meditation techniques namely, Chi and Kundalini yoga meditation on HRV have been investigated extensively, and significance of these techniques have been evaluated using statistical analysis.

Keywords: heart rate variability; HRV; meditation; chi; kundali yoga; time domain analysis; frequency domain analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBET.2022.128086

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2022 Vol.40 No.4, pp.330 - 352

Received: 01 Feb 2020
Accepted: 29 Jun 2020
Published online: 05 Jan 2023 *

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