Comparison of immediate effects of vocal breathing exercises and physical exercises on heart rate variability in healthy students

To improve voice, voice therapists use breathing exercises meant for changing breathing patterns in a person. It is well known that there is heart rate variability (HRV) in synchrony with respiration called respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Therefore, breathing exercises may influence not only voice but also cardiovascular system. Our study was aimed to detect any influence of vocal breathing exercises HRV and to compare it to that of physical exercises using short-term ECG recording. 3-minutes ECG records were made before and after squat-stands and breathing exercises for 13 healthy students (8 women, 5 men) aged from 19 to 21. As the most relevant parameters, rMSSD, LF, HF, LF/HF were extracted from ECG records. We found two types of cardiovascular response based on rMSSD. The first type of response is associated with post-squat-stand rMSSD decrease and post-breathing rMSSD increase. The second type of response is manifested in the opposite effects. Unfortunately, obtained data did not let to uncover causes these phenomena. © 2019 FUP,