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Anxiety and respiratory variability.

Van Diest I, Thayer JF, Vandeputte B, Van de Woestijne KP, Van den Bergh O

Department of Psychology, University of Leuven, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium. Ilse.VanDiest@psy.kuleuven

Associations of inter- and intra-individual differences in anxiety and fear with within subject variability in breathing parameters were explored. Timing and volume components of respiration and FETCO(2) were measured non-intrusively before and during anxious and fearful imagery in 98 young women. Trait anxiety was associated with less variability in several breathing parameters during baseline preceding imagery. Significant decreases in the variability of expiratory time and inspiratory drive were also observed during anxious imagery. During fearful imagery, however, the variability of FETCO(2) increased compared to baseline. Results on anxiety are largely in agreement with models that posit that healthy systems are characterized by variability and flexibility. The paradoxical findings for fearful imagery enhance the importance of a distinction between fearful and anxious affects.

Published 25 August 2006 in Physiol Behav, 89(2): 189-95.
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