The effects of autogenic training on psychological and autonomic nervous functions

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Purpose of this study was to investigate the psychophysiological changes during the autogenic training using physiological measures of autonomic nervous system, and psychological and behavioral measures. Subjects who have mastered autogenic training participated in the experiment and requested to perform speech task as a stress loading. During speech, psychophysiological measures, including skin conductance level, blood pressure, heart rate, and analysis of HR frequency, subjective anxiety, and behavioral assessment of speech anxiety were measured.It was found that mastering autogenic train causes the activation of both sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous functions, which was revealed through raise of blood pressure and the decrease of heart rate. It was also revealed that the autogenic training has effectiveness to decrease anxiety and to improvement of behavioral aspects. Results of this study suggested that autogenic training has effects to regulate autonomic nervous functions.Finally, after reviewing the development of autogenic behavior therapy and the recent development of cognitive behavior thrapy, common viewpoints between autogenic training and cognitive behavior therapy were discussed. Issues on the further direction of autogenic trainig in cognitive behavior therapy was discussed.