Heart-Brain Coherence: the relationship between IHM Self-Regulation Techniques and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Biofeedback Training among Iranian EFL Learners

Drawing on psycho-physiological research emphasizing the importance of facilitating the emotion-cognition or heart-brain interaction through self-regulation techniques, the present study aimed at investigating the efficacy of heart rate variability (HRV) on heart-brain coherence through self-regulation techniques suggested by Institute of HeartMath. Sixty-three Iranian university students and high school students participated in this study. The TestEdge program was used to enable students to self-generate an optimal psycho-physiological state in order to increase HRV measures and heart-brain coherence. Running paired samples t-tests and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks tests, the results confirmed that the application of IHM self-regulation techniques significantly reduced the subjects' low coherence ratio but increased the mid and high coherence ratio on the posttest than the pretest among subjects. Moreover, the subjects had a lower heart rate on the posttest than the pretest. These results indicated that utilizing IHM self-regulation techniques increased heart-brain coherence ratio.