Relaxation helps to reduce physical, mental, and emotional pressure. Relaxation techniques generally enable a person to obtain calmness and well-being by reducing stress, anxiety, or anger. When a person becomes calm the body reacts physiologically, producing the so-called Relaxation Response (RResp) which affects the organism in a positive manner, no matter if it is during a state of relaxation or in the middle of a stressful period. The goal of this paper is to design a system capable of identifying automatically the RResps of a subject by analyzing a single physiological signal, the galvanic skin response (GSR). To do so, a team composed of psychologists, neurologists, and engineers designed two experiments for inducing RResps in the participants while their GSR signals were being collected. The team analyzed the data and identified three different levels of RResp that can be quantified using only two easily calculated GSR features. Moreover, the use of the surface produced by GSR and its linear approximation is totally novel. Finally, the data were classified using decision tree strategies for each of the experiments and, after seeing that the obtained trees were similar, the team synthesized them in a single classification system. The F1 values obtained by the generalized classifier scored between 0.966 and 1.000 for the data collected in both experiments.
A Self-Paced Relaxation Response Detection System Based on Galvanic Skin Response Analysis
Publication
IEEE Access
Vol 7, pp. 43730 - 43741
Abstract
Web and Email Links
Related Listings
Journal
Behavior Therapy
The majority of individuals with insomnia treated with single behavioral interventions do not achieve normal sleep. In this study, individuals with chronic sleep-onset insomnia (n=12) were treated with a sequentially administered multifactor behavioral intervention consisting of sleep restriction, modified stimulus control, and relaxation training. They were compared to age- and sex-matched normal sleepers (n=14) prior to and following treatment using home-based polysomnography and po […]
Journal
Behavioral Medicine
The authors assessed data from 1,148 outpatients in a 10-week medical symptom reduction program to determine the effectiveness of a behavioral medicine intervention among somatizing patients. The program included instruction in the relaxation response, cognitive restructuring, nutrition, and exercise. Before and after the intervention, the patients were evaluated on the Symptom Checklist-90 Revised (SCL-90R), the Medical Symptom Checklist, and the Stress Perception Scale. They were di […]
Journal
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
We have investigated prospectively the efficacy of two nonpharmacologic relaxation techniques in the therapy of anxiety. A simple, meditational relaxation technique (MT) that elicits the changes of decreased sympathetic nervous system activity was compared to a self-hypnosis technique (HT) in which relaxation, with or without altered perceptions, was suggested. 32 patients with anxiety neurosis were divided into 2 groups on the basis of their responsivity to hypnosis: moderate-high an […]

