Breakdown of Long-Range Correlations in Heart Rate Fluctuations During Meditation
arXiv Preprint Archive January 27, 2009 Nikitas Papasimakis, Fotini Pallikari
Meditation, a state of induced mental relaxation, weakens correlations in heart rate variability at longer time scales, as shown by the average wavelet coefficient method. While periodic patterns dominate at short intervals, the signal loses complexity at larger scales, indicating a shift in underlying physiological mechanisms. An entropy analysis in the natural time domain confirms this substantial loss of complexity.