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Is It Possible to Determine the Level of Spiritual Well-Being by Measuring Heart Rate Variability During the Reading of Heavenly Books?

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Abstract

A previous study stated that reading holy books can make a meaningful change in heart rate variability (HRV). The purpose of this study was to test the effect of reading the Quran, the heavenly religious book of the Muslim people in the Arabic language, on the Farsi (Persian)-speaking Muslims with various levels of spiritual well-being (SWB). In addition, novel to this study was the assessment of whether or not it is possible to use HRV features to distinguish individuals with high SWB from those with medium SWB. First, a questionnaire was completed by 31 volunteers to measure their SWB. Baseline ECG measurements were recorded during the resting stage. The volunteers were then asked to read the Quran for 5 min while ECG was recorded again. HRV indexes were calculated and four features were extracted and analyzed based on their correlation with the different levels of SWB. Independent t-tests were conducted and the results established a significant difference in these four features between high SWB and medium SWB groups, during the reading stage. Subsequently, with the use of these four HRV features, an artificial neural network and a decision tree were designed to classify the levels of SWB in volunteers. The outcome of this study demonstrated that it is possible to evaluate the level of SWB in individuals while they are reading the Quran.

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Funding

No external funding was provided. The authors funded this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Daneshgah Blvd, Simon Bulivar Blvd, Tehran, Iran

    Maysam Mashhadimalek & Nader Jafarnia Dabanloo

  2. Institude for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

    Shahriar Gharibzadeh

  3. Basir Eye Research Center, Jamalzadeh, Tehran, Iran

    Shahriar Gharibzadeh

Authors
  1. Maysam Mashhadimalek
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  2. Nader Jafarnia Dabanloo
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  3. Shahriar Gharibzadeh
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Correspondence to Nader Jafarnia Dabanloo.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Mashhadimalek, M., Jafarnia Dabanloo, N. & Gharibzadeh, S. Is It Possible to Determine the Level of Spiritual Well-Being by Measuring Heart Rate Variability During the Reading of Heavenly Books?. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback 44, 185–193 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10484-019-09433-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10484-019-09433-3

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