The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of brushing skin stimulation comparison with acupuncture
and tube stimuli on autonomic nerve function in terms of electrocardiography finding, blood pressure, and body
flexibility in synchronization with expiration while sitting posture. Twenty healthy male college students participated
in this study. Heart rate(HR)decreased significantly (p < 0.01) during all the stimulations and returned to the
baseline state after each stimulation. The high frequency (HF) component increased significantly (p < 0.01) during
all stimulations and returned to the baseline state after each stimulation. The low frequency to HF ratio decreased
significantly (p<0.01) during the brush and tube stimulations, and returned to the baseline state after each stimulation.
Body flexibility was enhanced by all the stimuli. However, no significant change in blood pressure was observed.
These results suggest that brushing skin stimulation showed the same effects as acupuncture and tube stimuli on
cardio-parasympathetic nerve activity and body flexibility function.
Thermal stimulation around the eyelids is known to accelerate the recovery from fatigue due to visual display
terminal (VDT) operation and temporarily reduce accommodation; however, the region of the eye to which thermal
stimulation should be applied to effectively restore visual fatigue remained unknown. Identifying this region will lead
to a proposal of a device with a smaller heating area and unique shape. Therefore, in this study, subjective assessment
and objective measurement were performed to investigate the effect of differences in the region of thermal stimulation
on recovery from visual fatigue. The results of the investigation suggested that thermal stimulation to the medial
angle of the eye produced larger effects on the brain and fatigue recovery than did stimulation to the external canthus.
The purpose of this study was to examine the temperature of environments in which subjects stayed in summer,
as well as the relationship between the thermal environment and subjective heat-cold tolerance. Temperatures were
monitored using a portable thermometer. There was a significant difference between the average temperature of environments
in which subjects stayed (TSS: 28.5 ± 1.6 ℃ ) and the temperature recorded by the Japan Meteorological
Agency (T-JMA: 31.0 ± 1.7 ℃ ) (P < 0.05). The difference between the average daytime and nighttime temperatures
of TSS (0.8 ± 0.74 ℃ ) was significantly smaller than T-JMA (3.6 ± 0.69 ℃ ) (P < 0.001). Therefore, we concluded
that subjects in summer stayed in environments with temperatures lower than the T-JMA and lived in a narrowtemperature-
range environment. That suggested that the subjects lived in environments where room temperature
was controlled by air-conditioning.
To prevent heat stroke, we aimed to clarify the relationship between core body temperature and physiological
measurements during incremental load test under hot environment. Subjects exercised under hot environment (33°C
for air temperature, 60% for humidity) with measuring rectal temperature and other physiological measurements.
In results, the increase of heart rate correlated with not only increase of rectal temperature at the same point in
time but also the value after 5 or 10 minutes. Our results suggested that heart rate was useful physiological value as
related or estimated core temperature.