Real‐time heart rate variability biofeedback amplitude during a large‐scale digital mental health intervention differed by age, gender, and mental and physical health

Aschbacher, Kirstin; Mather, Mara; Lehrer, Paul; Gevirtz, Richard; Epel, Elissa; Peiper, Nicholas C.

doi:10.1111/psyp.14533

Cited by 2 publications

References 81 publications

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The Importance of Including Psychophysiological Methods in Psychotherapy

Lehrer

2024

Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback

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This paper describes characteristics of sophisticated use of psychophysiological therapy procedures and describes a scoping review of evidence that adding psychophysiological procedures to psychotherapy improves outcome. It also reviews literature describing comparisons between psychophysiological procedures and various CBT and other verbal psychotherapy procedures when used as monotherapies. Some details of progressive muscle relaxation, autogenic training, and biofeedback are described that often are omitted in standard clinical training, including the method of diminishing tensions and differential relaxation training in progressive muscle relaxation, use of autogenic discharges and hypnotic instructions in autogenic training, and resonance frequency training in heart rate variability biofeedback and slow breathing. Although these details are often also missing in outcome studies, tentative conclusions can still be drawn from the empirical literature. As a monotherapy, psychophysiological methods are generally as powerful as verbal psychotherapies, although combining them with psychotherapy yields a larger effect than either approach alone. Psychophysiological methods have their strongest effects on anxiety and depression, with weaker effects for panic and PTSD, particularly when compared with exposure therapy, although the latter comparisons were restricted to relaxation training as a psychophysiological approach. Effects of psychophysiological interventions are weaker among elementary school children than among adults and adolescents. The results suggest that psychophysiological methods should be used along with other psychotherapeutic interventions for greatest effect.

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The Importance of Including Psychophysiological Methods in Psychotherapy

Lehrer

2024

Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback

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Triggered by the Heart: Effectiveness of Two Brief Just in Time Adaptive Interventions (JITAI) for Reducing Stress and Stabilizing Cardiac Autonomic Function (Preprint)

Schwerdtfeger,

Tatschl,

Rominger

2024

Preprint

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BACKGROUND Transient heart rate variability decreases independent of bodily movement (additional heart rate variability reductions; AddHRVr) potentially reflect moments of psychophysiological vulnerability. OBJECTIVE We applied this measure by means of wearables in everyday life to trigger low-threshold 1-min interventions with the aim to stabilize autonomic function and relieve perceived stress and ruminative thoughts. METHODS In two pre-registered micro-randomized trials participants underwent a 1-day calibration period to derive individualized trigger settings, and then received AddHRVr-triggered and random prompts throughout the following 3 days asking for perceived stress and rumination. In Study 1, N = 60 participants underwent a slow breathing intervention (0.1 Hz resonance breathing) following each prompt and in Study 2, N = 49 participants were micro-randomized to an external attention and mindful breathing intervention, respectively. RESULTS Following interventions in both studies, perceived stress and ruminative thoughts significantly declined irrespective of the kind of prompt and intervention. AddHRVr-triggered prompts resulted in a stronger increase in HRV during the slow-paced breathing and mindful breathing interventions and elevated HRV in a time frame of 10 minutes following the interventions (in contrast to random prompts). CONCLUSIONS Both studies show for the very first time that an AddHRVr algorithm can be used to trigger brief just in time interventions by wearables to stabilize autonomic function, thus potentially promoting cardiac health.

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Real‐time heart rate variability biofeedback amplitude during a large‐scale digital mental health intervention differed by age, gender, and mental and physical health

Cited by 2 publications

References 81 publications

The Importance of Including Psychophysiological Methods in Psychotherapy

The Importance of Including Psychophysiological Methods in Psychotherapy

Triggered by the Heart: Effectiveness of Two Brief Just in Time Adaptive Interventions (JITAI) for Reducing Stress and Stabilizing Cardiac Autonomic Function (Preprint)

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