Impact of a 12-Week Group-Based Compassion Focused Therapy Intervention on Heart Rate Variability
- PDF / 616,647 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 64 Downloads / 196 Views
Impact of a 12‑Week Group‑Based Compassion Focused Therapy Intervention on Heart Rate Variability Patrick R. Steffen1 · Jennifer Foxx1 · Kara Cattani1 · Cameron Alldredge1 · Tara Austin1 · Gary M. Burlingame1 Accepted: 10 September 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Heart rate variability (HRV) is considered an index of self-regulatory capacity, and trait compassion predicts healthy HRV and self-regulation. Compassion focused psychotherapy interventions have been shown to increase levels of compassion in the general population but no studies to date have examined if these interventions also increase HRV in a distressed clinical sample. The present study examined whether a 12-week compassion focused therapy intervention administered in group format would improve resting HRV and impact HRV reactivity during self-critical writing and self-compassion writing tasks administered before and after the intervention. A total of 31 participants in a university counseling center completed the intervention and HRV assessments. Resting HRV did not significantly change over the course of the intervention in the overall sample. Only those who showed a reliable increase in self-compassion also had a significant increase in resting HRV post-intervention. Additionally, the self-critical writing task was associated with a significant decrease in HRV, with HRV staying low during self-compassionate writing and then significantly increasing during recovery. Reliable change in selfcompassion predicted increased HRV reactivity to self-critical and self-compassion writing tasks following the intervention, indicating greater engagement with the task. Findings support the idea that increased self-compassion increases HRV reactivity and potentially strengthens ability to engage with difficult emotions in psychotherapy. Keywords Heart rate variability · Compassion · Group therapy · Reactivity · Stress
Introduction Heart rate variability (HRV), the variation in time intervals between heartbeats, is considered an index of self-regulatory capacity and is a significant predictor of health outcomes, with higher resting HRV related to better physical and mental health (Balzarotti et al. 2017; Holzman and Bridgett 2017; Mather and Thayer 2018; Segerstrom and Nes 2007; Smith et al. 2020). HRV reactivity to stressful challenges, in addition to resting HRV, is a significant predictor of outcome. Perhaps surprisingly, greater HRV reactivity, including decreased HRV levels during stress, is predictive of positive outcomes over time (Overbeek et al. 2014; Panaite et al. 2015; Schiweck et al. 2019; Stange et al. 2017). HRV reactivity has been termed ’autonomic flexibility’ and ’vagal flexibility’ meaning that being more reactive to stress * Patrick R. Steffen [email protected] 1
Brigham Young University, 284 TLRB, Provo, UT 84604, USA
indicates healthy engagement with the current situation (Berntson et al. 2008; Multadie et al. 2015). Because higher resting HRV is predictive of positive health outcomes,
Data Loading...
