Take a deep breath: The relief effect of spontaneous and instructed sighs

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• 作者：Elke Vlemincx ; Joachim Taelman ; Ilse Van Diest ; Omer Van den Bergh
• 关键词：Sighing ; EMG ; Respiratory variability ; Mental stress
• 刊名：Physiology and Behavior
• 出版年：2010
• 出版时间：4 August 2010
• 年：2010
• 卷：101
• 期：1
• 页码：67-73
• 全文大小：196 K

文摘

Spontaneous sighing is related to subjective relief of negative emotional states. Whether this also applies to instructed sighing is not known. The present study aimed to investigate sEMG and respiratory variability (1) during recovery from mental stress with and without an instructed sigh; (2) before and after spontaneous sighs throughout the experiment. A spontaneous sigh was preceded by increasing sEMG and increasing random respiratory variability, and followed by decreasing sEMG and increased structured correlated respiratory variability. Following an instructed sigh, a smaller reduction in sEMG and an increase in random respiratory variability during recovery from mental stress were observed. Thus, a spontaneous sigh seemed to induce relief. An instructed sigh appeared to inhibit recovery from mental stress.