According to a recent study, listening to relaxing words moderates heart activity, which indicates deeper sleep.
- After the presentation of relaxing words, the activity of the heart was slowed down.
- This slowing of the heart rate indicates deeper sleep.
- According to the authors, cardiac activity contributes to the way we directly perceive the world.
Is the body really disconnected from the outside world during sleep? This is the question asked by scientists from the universities of Liège (Belgium) and Friborg (Switzerland). In order to answer this, they decided to conduct a study, the results of which were published in the journal Journal of Sleep Research. For the purposes of this work, the researchers were interested in how heart rate changes when we hear different words during sleep.
Slower heart rate caused by listening to relaxing words reflects deeper sleep
In previous research, the team showed, by analyzing brain data, that relaxing words increased the duration of deep sleep and the quality of sleep. She hypothesized that the brain remains able to interpret sensory information in a way that makes the body more relaxed after hearing relaxing words during sleep. In this new study, the authors had the opportunity to analyze the cardiac activity of several participants to verify this theory.
According to the results, the heart only slowed down after the presentation of relaxing words, but not neutral words. This slowing of heart rate is a sign of deeper sleep. Markers of cardiac activity and brain activity were then compared to determine the extent to which they contributed to the modulation of sleep by auditory information. According to scientists, heart activity contributes to how we directly perceive the world.
“Study the role played by the heart in other sleep functions”
“We have freely shared our methodology following the principles of open science, hoping that the tools that made this discovery will inspire other researchers to study the role played by the heart in other sleep functions. ( …) This work offers a more comprehensive approach to the modulation of sleep functions by sensory information. By examining cardiac responses to sounds, we will be able, for example, to study in the future the role of the body in how sounds influence the emotional processing of memories during sleep”, concluded the team.
