Autonomous neural network activation during religious worship experiences using heart rate variability measurements

ABSTRACT

Previous studies have suggested that religious experiences in worship demand an attentional control that facilitates the desired state of mind, and that there is a systemic activation of a person’s peripheral physiology at play. The present validation study hypothesized that the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is activated during the experience. For this, 60 participants took part in an experiment with some religious and secular conditions where they worshipped God and indicated how strongly they sensed the presence of God. Electrocardiogram (ECG) measurements were taken to analyze the activity of the autonomous nervous network (ANS) through the heart rate variability (HRV) and to compare it to the religious experience. Our results show that there appears to be a recruitment of the SNS, confirming our working hypothesis. However, there is a negative association of Baevsky’s stress index (SI) with the experience, suggesting that the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is co-recruited, although to a lesser degree.

KEYWORDS:

• Religion
• worship
• religious experience
• heart rate variability
• HRV
• music

Acknowledgments

Our main appreciation goes out to all the participants who have taken part in this study. Without them, such a research project touching on a very intimate human experience could not have happened.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 This study makes no claim about the existence or non-existence of God or other divine, spiritual, or supernatural entities. The language that is used here to denote such ideas are purely employed as a reference to the mental concepts from the emic perspectives of the believers recruited for the current study.

 

 

2 The responsible Swiss ethics committee is the one located in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland, meaning that the approval was provided by the Cantonal Bernese Ethics Committee (KEK Bern). Project ID number: 2021-00022.