Effects of voluntary slow breathing on heart rate and heart rate variability: A systematic review and a meta-analysis
Sylvain Laborde et al.
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · 2022
What the research tells us
RMSSD increased during breathing practice, immediately after a session and after repeated sessions. The measurement time matters; an increase during practice does not establish lasting recovery.
Scope & interpretation
Most studies had high risk of bias; heterogeneity and incomplete reporting constrain interpretation. This is not a head-to-head ranking of breathing methods.
Study at a glance
- POPULATION & SAMPLE
- 223 studies; timing categories overlap and are not independent study totals.
- EXPOSURE / INTERVENTION / SUBJECT
- Voluntary breathing below ten cycles/minute versus a faster-breathing control condition.
- OUTCOMES
- HRV and heart rate, separated by measurement time.
- TIME FRAME
- During, immediately after one session and after a multisession intervention.
Cited on this site
Editorial & review record
Record for v1.0 · Updated
Editorial responsibility: TAP Editorial Team
Editorial note
Under the editorial responsibility of the TAP Editorial Team, this publication used AI assistance for content organization and editing.
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How responsibilities and review are recorded ↗Scope of this reading note
Solent-hosted accepted manuscript: methods, main results, risk of bias and declarations. Supplementary analyses were not reproduced.
- Study funding
- Authors reported no funding source.
- Competing interests
- Authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Project support
Founded and supported by Resilio.
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