Utility of Voluntary Control of Respiration and Biofeedback for Increasing and Decreasing Heart Rate

Abstract

ABSTRACT Ninety‐six subjects participated in an experiment conducted to determine the separate and combined effects of respiratory control and biofeedback on control of heart rate (HR). The results indicated, first, that controlling respiration enabled subjects to reliably ( p < .001) increase HR but did not enable them to decrease HR, and second, that HR biofeedback did not enable subjects to change their HR more than they did when simply instructed to do so and not given biofeedback. These results are consistent with and add to previous findings concerning respiratory control, biofeedback and HR.