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Chaotic Behavior of Heart Rate Signals during Chi and Kundalini Meditation

2012; Volume: 4; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5815/ijigsp.2012.02.04

2074-9082

Atefeh Goshvarpour, Ateke Goshvarpour,

Mental Health Research Topics

Nonlinear dynamics has been introduced to the analysis of biological data and increasingly recognized to be functionally relevant.The aim of this study is to quantify and compare the contribution of nonlinear and chaotic dynamics of human heart rate variability during two forms of meditation: (i) Chinese Chi (or Qigong) meditation and (ii) Kundalini Yoga meditation.For this purpose, Poincare plots, Lyapunov exponents and Hurst exponents of heart rate variability signals were analyzed.In this study, we examined the different behavior of heart rate signals during two specific meditation techniques.The results show that heart rate signals became more periodic and their chaotic behavior was decreased in both techniques of meditation.Therefore, nonlinear chaotic indices may serve as a quantitative measure for psychophysiological states such as meditation.In addition, different forms of meditation appear to differentially alter specific components of heart rate signals.