Qi Gong and Heart Rate Variability: A Systematic Review

Qì Gōng is a type of exercise that involves meditation and is used for health. With a background from the martial arts, it is known also as an auto healing exercise with three main elements according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM): body focus (posture and movement), breathing and mind focus (meditative elements). Heart rate variability is a tool that allows us to measure the autonomic system velocity to detect and respond to unexpected stimuli. So our goal was to build a systematic review of Qi Gong and Heart rate variability. PUBMED, EBSCO and Science Direct data bases were searched. Key terms (MeSH) were Heart Rate Variability and Ch’i Kung OR Qi Gong with a 10-year filter. Four independent reviewers analyzed all articles and excluded duplicated articles, articles in Chinese and articles with no adherence to the subject. The end result was 5 studies selected. Our results showed no significant improvements in HRV with the practice of Qì Gōng, probably because of data heterogeneity. We found 5 types of Qì Gōng, 3 different instruments and different time intervals to measure HRV and 2 different age groups in the studies. We can conclude that there is evidence that Qì Gōng can improve HRV but studies that would use the same parameters are needed to further confirm that.