The rhythm of the heart
The variation in the timing of heartbeats is known as heart rate variability (HRV) and results from the interaction of sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve fibers.
How does this rhythmicity come about?
Why does it make sense for the organism that the heart does not beat precisely like clockwork?
And what does all this have to do with our psyche?
We try to answer these and other questions with studies in the laboratory and in the field. We are also trying to use the wisdom of the heart to improve health. Can the heartbeat tell us when we should perform psychological exercises to feel better? Such so-called "just-in-time adaptive interventions", i.e. psychological exercises that are incorporated into everyday life at exactly the right moment to make us feel better, are being developed and evaluated at the Health Psychology department.
Literature:
► Schwerdtfeger et al (2020) Invited review: Heart rate variability (HRV): From brain death to resonance breathing at 6 breaths/minute
► Schwerdtfeger et al (2020). A shy heart may benefit from everyday life social interactions with close others: An ecological momentary assessment trial using Bayesian multilevel modeling
► Schwerdtfeger & Rominger (2021). Feelings from the heart: Developing HRV decrease-trigger algorithms via multilevel hyperplane simulation to detect psychosocially meaningful episodes in everyday life