Abstract
The cardiac regulation effects of a mental task added to regular office work are described. More insight into the time evolution during the different tasks is created by using time–frequency analysis (TFA). Continuous wavelet transformation was applied to create time series of instantaneous power and frequency in specified frequency bands (LF 0.04–0.15 Hz; HF 0.15–0.4 Hz), in addition to the traditional linear heart rate variability (HRV) parameters. In a laboratory environment, 43 subjects underwent a protocol with three active conditions: a clicking task with low mental load and a clicking task with high mental load (mental arithmetic) performed twice, each followed by a rest condition. The heart rate and measures related to vagal modulation could differentiate the active conditions from the rest condition, meaning that HRV is sensitive to any change in mental or physical state. Differences between physical and mental stress were observed and a higher load in the combined task was observed. Mental stress decreased HF power and caused a shift toward a higher instantaneous frequency in the HF band. TFA revealed habituation to the mental load within the task (after 3 min) and between the two tasks with mental load. In conclusion, the use of TFA in this type of analysis is important as it reveals extra information. The addition of a mental load to a physical task elicited further effect on HRV parameters related to autonomic cardiac modulation.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Akselrod S, Gordon D, Ubel FA, Shannon DC, Berger AC, Cohen CJ (1981) Power spectrum analysis of heart rate fluctuation: a quantitative probe of beat-to-beat cardiovascular control. Science 213:220–222
Bernardi L, Wdowczyk-Szulc J, Valenti C, Castoldi S, Passino C, Spadacini G et al (2000) Effects of controlled breathing, mental activity and mental stress with or without verbalization on heart rate variability. J Am Coll Cardiol 35:1462–1469
Clariá F, Vallverdu M, Baranowski R, Chojnowska L, Caminal P (2008) Heart rate variability analysis based on time–frequency representation and entropies in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy patients. Physiol Meas 29:401–416
Cohen L (1995) Time–frequency analysis. Signal Processing Series. Prentice Hall, New Jersey
De Geus EJ, van Doornen LJ, de Visser DC, Orlebeke JF (1990) Existing and training induced differences in aerobic fitness: the relationship to physiological response patterns during different types of stress. Psychophysiology 27(4):457–478
Declaration of Helsinki—Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects (2008). http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html. Accessed 15 July 2010
Delaney JPA, Brodie DA (2000) Effects of short-term psychological stress on the time and frequency domains of heart-rate variability. Percept Mot Skills 91:515–524
Eckberg DL (1997) Sympathovagal balance: a critical appraisal. Circulation 96:3224–3232
European Commission Press Release (2004) Commission asks workers and employees what action should be taken to combat musculoskeletal disorders. IP/04/1358, Brussels, 12 November 2004
Gaillard AWK, Wientjes CJE (1994) Mental load and work stress as two types of energy mobilization. Work Stress 8:141–152
Garde AH, Laursen B, Jørgensen AH, Jensen BR (2002) Effects of mental and physical demands on heart rate variability during computer work. Eur J Appl Physiol 87:456–461
González-Camarena R, Carrasco-Sosa S, Román-Ramos R, Gaitán-González MJ, Medina-Baňuelos V, Azpiroz-Leehan J (2000) Effect of static and dynamic exercise on heart rate and blood pressure variabilities. Med Sci Sports Exerc 32:1719–1728
Hjortskov N, Rissen D, Blangsted AKK, Fallentin N, Lundberg U, Søgaard K (2004) The effect of mental stress on heart rate variability and blood pressure during computer work. Eur J Appl Physiol 92:84–89
Johnson JV, Hall EM (1988) Job strain, work place social support, and cardiovascular disease: a cross-sectional study of a random sample of the Swedish working population. Am J Public Health 78:1336–1342
Kelsey RM, Blascovich J, Leitten CL, Schneider TR, Tomaka J, Wiens S (2000) Cardiovascular reactivity and adaptation to recurrent psychological stress: the moderating effects of evaluative observation. Psychophysiology 37:748–756
Kivimaki M, Leino-Arjas P, Luukkonen R, Riihimaki H, Vahtera J, Kirjonen J (2002) Work stress and risk of cardiovascular mortality: prospective cohort study of industrial employees. BMJ 325:857–861
Kleiger R, Miller J, Bigger Jr, Moss A (1987) Decreased heart rate variability and its association with increased mortality after acute myocardial infarctions. J Cardiol 59(4):256–262
Krantz G, Forsman M, Lundberg U (2004) Consistency in physiological stress responses and electromyographic activity during induced stress exposure in women and men. Integr Physiol Behav Sci 39(2):105–118
Kuklin SG, Dzizinskii AA, Titov YM, Temnikov AA (2006) Continuous wavelet analysis: a new method for studying nonstationary oscillations in the cardiac rhythm. Hum Physiol 32:116–121
Lundberg U, Frankenhaeuser M (1980) Pituitary–adrenal and sympathetic-adrenal correlates of distress and effort. J Psychosom Res 24:125–130
McEwen BS, Stellar E (1993) Stress and the individual: mechanisms leading to disease. Arch Intern Med 153:2093–2101
Mezzacappa ES, Kelsey RM, Katkin ES, Sloan R (2001) Vagal rebound and recovery from psychological stress. Psychosom Med 63:650–657
Myrtek M, Weber D, Brügner G, Müller W (1996) Occupational stress and strain of female students: results of physiological, behavioural, and psychological monitoring. Biol Psychol 42:379–391
Nilsen KB, Sand T, Stovner LJ, Leistad RB, Westgaard RH (2007) Autonomic and muscular responses and recovery to one-hour laboratory mental stress in healthy subjects. BMC Musculoskelet Disord 8:81
Nolan RP, Kamath MV, Floras JS, Stanley J, Pang C, Picton P et al (2005) Heart period variability biofeedback as a behavioral neurocardiac intervention to enhance vagal heart rate control. Am Heart J 149:1137
Orini M, Bailon R, Enk R, Koelsch S, Mainardi L, Laguna P (2010) A method for continuously assessing the autonomic response to music-induced emotions through HRV analysis. Med Biol Eng Comput 48(5):423–433
Pagani M, Mazzuero G, Ferrari A, Liberati D, Cerutti S, Vaitl D et al (1991) Sympathovagal interaction during mental stress. A study using spectral analysis of heart rate variability in healthy control subjects and patients with prior myocardial infarction. Circulation 83(2):II43–II51
Pan J, Tompkins WJ (1985) A real time QRS detection algorithm. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 32:230–236
Percival DB, Walden AT (2000) Wavelet methods for time series analysis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Perini R, Milesi S, Fisher NM, Pendergast DR, Veicsteinas A (2000) Heart rate variability during dynamic exercise in elderly males and females. Eur J Appl Physiol 82:8–15
Sloan RP, Korten JB, Myers MM (1991) Components of heart rate reactivity during mental arithmetic with and without speaking. Physiol Behav 50(5):1039–1045
Sloan RP, Shapiro PA, Bagiella E, Boni SM, Paik M, Bigger JT et al (1994) Effect of mental stress throughout the day on cardiac autonomic control. Biol Psychol 37:89–99
Stevenson I, Ripley HS (1952) Variations in respirations and respiratory symptoms during changes in emotion. Psychosom Med 14:476–490
Tarvainen MP, Karjalainen PA, Karjalainen PA (2002) An advanced detrending method with application to HRV analysis. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 49(2):172–175
Task Force of the European Society of Cardiology and the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology (1996) Heart rate variability: standards of measurement, physiological interpretation, and clinical use. Circulation 93:1043–1065
Taylor SE (2000) Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight. Psychol Rev 107:411–429
Van Praag HM (2002) Crossroads of corticotropin releasing hormone, corticosteroids and monoamines. About the interface between stress and depression. Neurotox Res 4:531–555
Vandeput S, Taelman J, Spaepen A, Van Huffel S (2009) Heart rate variability as a tool to distinguish periods of physical and mental stress in a laboratory environment. In: Proceedings of the 6th international workshop on biosignal interpretation (BSI), New Haven, CT, June 2009, pp 187–190
Vlemincx E, Taelman J, De Peuter S, Van Diest I, Van den Bergh O (2011) Sigh rate and respiratory variability during mental load and sustained attention. Psychophysiology 48(1):117–120
Wahlström K, Hagberg M, Johnson PW, Svensson J, Rempel D (2002) Influence of time pressure and verbal provocation on physiological and psychological reactions during work with a computer mouse. Eur J Appl Physiol 87:257–263
Zhong X, Hilton HJ, Gates GJ, Jelic S, Stern Y, Bartels Y et al (2005) Increased sympathetic and decreased parasympathetic cardiovascular modulation in normal humans with acute sleep deprivation. J Appl Physiol 98(6):2024–2032
Zhong Y, Jan K, Ju KH, Chon KH (2006) Quantifying cardiac sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous activities using principal dynamic modes analysis of heart rate variability. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 291:H1475–H1483
Acknowledgments
Dr. Sabine Van Huffel is a full professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. We thank the European Commission for funding part of this work under contract IST-027291 (ConText). The research was supported by the Research Council KUL [GOA Ambiorics, GOA MaNet, CoE EF/05/006 Optimization in Engineering (OPTEC), PFV/10/002 (OPTEC), IDO 05/010 EEG-fMRI, IDO 08/013 Autism, IOF-KP06/11 FunCopt, several PhD/postdoc & fellow grants], Flemish government [FWO: PhD/postdoctoral grants, projects: FWO G.0302.07 (SVM), G.0341.07 (Data fusion), G.0427.10N (Integrated EEG-fMRI) research communities (ICCoS, ANMMM); IWT: TBM070713-Accelero, TBM070706-IOTA3, TBM080658-MRI (EEG-fMRI), PhD Grants], Belgian Federal Science Policy Office [(IUAP P6/04 (DYSCO, `Dynamical systems, control and optimization’, 2007–2011);ESA PRODEX No 90348 (sleep homeostasis)] and EU [FAST (FP6-MC-RTN-035801), Neuromath (COST-BM0601)].
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Communicated by Susan Ward.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Taelman, J., Vandeput, S., Vlemincx, E. et al. Instantaneous changes in heart rate regulation due to mental load in simulated office work. Eur J Appl Physiol 111, 1497–1505 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-010-1776-0
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-010-1776-0