The Impacts of Mindfulness on Heart Rate Variability: A Brief Review

Abstract

Background: Mindfulness is a famous program that has been practiced in the world for many years, its positive functions on human well–being have been proved. Its influences on central nervous system also have been studied using electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resource image. In recent years, some studies work on its action on autonomic nervous system using Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Objective: The major goal of this study is to evaluate the impacts of mindfulness on HRV based on literature review. Methods: We search for related papers from PubMed in recent 10 years which were published in English, and examine the effectiveness of HRV on the evaluation of mindfulness. Results: Most of results showed that time-domain based SDNN, RMSDD and frequency-domain based HF were significantly increased after 8-week mindfulness training. Conclusions: HRV metrics can be useful indices for the evaluation of mindfulness studies. It proved that increased SDNN, RMSDD and HF were associated with better parasympathetic function and well-being.