The effect of slowed, paced, diaphragmatic breathing on self reported anxiety and perception of life problems

Abstract

This study addressed slowed, paced, diaphragmatic breathing as an adaptive technique for persons in stressful life circumstances. Ninety-six U.S. Army National Guard and Reserve trainees on active duty voluntarily participated over 12 days according to one of three conditions: (1) The treatment group (n=35) was instructed in and given four 10 minute sessions of slowed, diaphragmatic breathing paced to the flashing of two lights (one red and one green) which cued a 4 second inspiration and a 4 second exhalation; (2) The attention control group (n=31) counted flashes on an identical light apparatus for four 10 minute sessions; (3) The no treatment control group (n=30), was given four 10 minute breaks during concurrent periods. All subjects were pretested and posttested with the A-State form of the StateTrait Anxiety Inventory and the Mooney Problem Checklist. These scores were the two dependent variables. Analysis ofvariance of pretest scores indicated no significant differences among group means. Two univariate analyses were used to test the hypotheses. Null hypothesis 1, that there would be no difference among posttest means for A-State Anxiety, was rejected. Null hypothesis 2, that there would be no difference among posttest means for Mooney Total, was upheld. Post hoc comparisons (Sheffe) between groups on the A-State measure revealed that the treatment group reported significantly less anxiety than the attention control group. But no significant difference was found between the treatment group and the no treatment group. Similar findings were reported by Holmes, et al. (1978). Procedural and nonspecific effects on the outcome and implications for future research were discussed.