title: Take a deep breath: the relief effect of spontaneous and instructed sighs.
abstract: Spontaneous sighing is related to subjective relief of negative emotional states. Whether this also applies to instructed sighing is not known. The present study aimed to investigate sEMG and respiratory variability (1) during recovery from mental stress with and without an instructed sigh; (2) before and after spontaneous sighs throughout the experiment. A spontaneous sigh was preceded by increasing sEMG and increasing random respiratory variability, and followed by decreasing sEMG and increased structured correlated respiratory variability. Following an instructed sigh, a smaller reduction in sEMG and an increase in random respiratory variability during recovery from mental stress were observed. Thus, a spontaneous sigh seemed to induce relief. An instructed sigh appeared to inhibit recovery from mental stress.
authors.affiliation: Research Group on Health Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Leuven, Belgium. elke.vlemincx@psy.kuleuven.be
authors.forename: Elke
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vlemincx
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Taelman
authors.forename: Ilse
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Van Diest
authors.forename: Omer
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Van den Bergh
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001945:Breathing Exercises; D004576:Electromyography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012123:Pulmonary Ventilation; D012016:Reference Values; D012119:Respiration; D012143:Respiratory Physiological Phenomena; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*; D013990:Tidal Volume; D055815:Young Adult