New Citations | A Physiological Perspective to Stress Management and Mental Health

Musical Intervention as Stress Regulation

There is no question that music can be beneficial in regulating mood and psychological states, but what type of musical intervention assists the greatest in stress reduction? Researchers turn to physiological signals to compare the stress reduction effects of two types of musical interventions: music listening and musical improvisation. Stressor tasks were completed, followed by a given type of musical intervention in which electrodermal activity responses were measured with an MP Series Data Acquisition Unit.

Read the Full Study: Stress Reduction From a Musical Intervention (Fallon, Warfield, Hearn, Rubenstein, Ennerfelt, and Leaver)

Mental Health Maintenance for Pregnant Women

Maintenance of mental health remains beneficial for everyone, but it is especially crucial for pregnant women. Psychological stress, common during pregnancies, can not only affect the mother’s well-being but also the child’s birth outcomes. Considering how essential mental well-being is, researchers in this study look at a variety of demographic factors, such as marital status, race, and income that predict mental health outcomes in pregnant women. To compare demographic factors, physiological signals such as heart rate variability are recorded using an MP Series Data Acquisition Unit and analyzed with AcqKnowledge software.

Read the Full Study: Stress and Depressive Symptoms Among Demographically Diverse American Pregnant Women (Herbell, Zauszniewski, and Williams)

Tackling Chronic Academic Stress in College Students

Stress has affected generations of college students, with prior research revealing connections between negative perceived stress and self-esteem, self-efficacy, and optimism. Physiological associations with stress, however, has not been investigated as intensively. In an effort to examine the physiological aspects of stress, this study utilizes a MP160 Data Acquisition System to record undergraduate college students’ respiratory sinus arrhythmia profiles, at different levels of perceived stress. The findings suggest an increased prioritization of maintaining and improving autonomic nervous system health among college students.

Read the Full Study: Relationships Between Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia and Stress in College Students (Fanning, Silfer, Liu, Gauvin, Heilman, Porges, and Rejeski)