2022 Volume 20 Issue 2 Pages 83-91
Visceral sensory awareness can play an important role in relaxation. We examined the relationship between visceral sensory awareness, health management, and health behaviors using the experimental method. Awareness of heartbeats was used as a measure of the visceral sensory awareness.
The participants of this study were 19 students. We employed a calculation task to induce a high arousal/stress condition and a breathing technique to induce a low arousal/relaxation condition, and awareness of heartbeats in both conditions was evaluated using a heartbeat tracking task. Heart rate and respiration rate were used as physiological measures, and the Affect Grid was used for subjective emotional evaluation. Health management and health behaviors were assessed using a questionnaire.
The results showed that the low arousal/relaxation condition had a positive effect on participants' performance of the heartbeat tracking task. Correlational analysis showed a negative relationship between performance on the heartbeat tracking task and appropriate coping behaviors in the high arousal/stress condition, and a positive relationship between the performance on the heartbeat tracking task and appropriate coping behaviors in the low arousal/relaxation condition. We discuss the important role of visceral sensory awareness in relaxation, health management, and health behaviors.
