Budzynski and Stoyva (1969) have proposed EMG-biofeedback (BF) to induce deep relaxation. They have reported that EMG-BF is effective to evaluate relaxation, and to inform subjects of their relaxed states. EMG, however, does not seem to indicate whole bodily and mental relaxation, but exactly muscle relaxation only. In addition, subjects could not know their relaxed states through EMG-BF only. EMG-BF for deep relaxation may not only produce whole body's relaxation, but enable subjects to notice how to relax muscle tension. In order to be aware of their own EMG changes exactly, subjects must try to reduce their mental tension through their volitional strategy for relaxation. In the present experiment, EMG-BF and deep respiration method which is one of strategies for relaxation were both used, and compared with each other. This experiment was run to reveal that subjects volitional activities might play an important role in the feedback training for deep relaxation. In the first session of the present experiment, all the subjects were asked to relax their whole bodies, especially their right shoulders by their own method. EMG was induced from trapezius. Any intentional body movement was not allowed. From the second to the forth session they were trained to relax their bodies under three conditions; (a) Biofeedback (BF), (b) deep respiration (R), and (c) control (C). In the fifth session, they were instructed to relax under the same condition as that of the first session. Immediately after each session they all were requested to rate their feeling on 4 point-scale, (1) subjective feeling of right shoulder's relaxation, (2) feeling of success, (3) subjective feeling of whole body's relaxation, and (4) mental calmness. Results obtained from the present study indicated that BF-group could immediately reduce their EMG, but they could not reduce them successfully without BF in the 5th session. On the other hand,R-group could succeed in reducing their EMG without deep respiration. R-group increased both scores of subjective feeling of bodily relaxation and feeling of success remarkably through all sessions. However, scores of thesame items of BF-group rather decreased. The other items had same tendency across all groups. The reason why BF-group did not succeed in retention of BF relaxation was that there was a big discrepancy between EMG reduction and subjective feeling of relaxation in BF-group. On the others hand, R-group reduced their EMG, and increased subjective feeling of relaxation. R-group, however, succeeded in EMG reduction without deep respiration. These results indicate that EMG feedback only would have not any directive relation with subject volitional activities trying to reduce their EMG. It was concluded that retention of BF relaxation training might require relaxation exercises, and BF which would be contingent on exercises.
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