![]() Marijke De Couck, Ralf Caers, Liza Musch, Johanna Fliegauf, Antonio Giangreco, and Yori Gidron. One of the links between respiration and cognition is HRV." Though VN involvement can explain the effects on health and mental health, the link with cognition is less clear. Slow breathing techniques with long exhalation will signal a state of relaxation by the vagus nerve, resulting in more VN activity and further relaxation. This is a form of respiratory biofeedback. Not only does vagus nerve control heart rate and slow deep breathing slow respiration rates with extended exhalation could also activate the PNS by vagus nerve afferent function in the airways. This pattern can be explained by these controlled breathing exercises.Ĭlearly, these functions all move the system towards the rest-and-digest mode of operation and away from fight-or-flight. Though contemplative activities are diverse, they have shown a similar pattern of beneficial effects on health, mental health, and cognition: mostly in stress-related conditions and performance. The nerve, as a proponent of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), is the prime candidate in explaining the effects of contemplative practices on health, mental health and cognition.įrequently adopting these respiration patterns (slowed and with longer exhalations) can explain a significant part of the efficacy found within contemplative activity practice. Especially slow and deep breathing with emphasis on long exhalation is dominant across traditions, including zen and vipassana-though there are a few practices stimulating faster respiration patterns (i.e., the yoga technique "breath of fire"). "The breathing techniques used in contemplative activities (e.g., meditation, yoga, tai chi) include, but are not restricted to, slowing down respiration cycles, shifting to longer exhalations compared to inhalations, shifting the main locus of respiration from the thorax to the abdomen (diaphragmatic breathing), or paying attention to "natural" breathing. Throughout their paper, Gerritsen and Band explain how the latest research on rVNS fits into a historical timeline of other techniques used to harness runaway fight-or-flight stress responses and calm the autonomic nervous system.
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