Sympathetic Arousal during a Touch-Based Healing Ritual Predicts Increased Well-Being

Table 2

Behavioral and psychophysiological variables before, during, and after the ritual.

	Baseline	Ritual	After ritual	ANOVA
	Mean (SD)	Mean (SD)	Mean (SD)		value
SQD (score)	2.7 (0.6)	—	2.0 (0.6)	28.2	<0.001
Heart rate (min^−1)	74.5 (9.7)	73.6 (9.3)	75.0 (9.6)	2.6	0.088
RMSSD (ms)	25.2 (13.6)	26.2 (16.2)	23.4 (13.5)	0.5	0.526
Skin conductance level (sqrt μmho)	3.4 (1.3)	3.2 (1.6)	3.3 (1.7)	0.6	0.489
Respiratory rate (min^−1)	12.3 (3.9)	13.8 (4.4)	13.3 (4.9)	4.0	0.039

SQD: Short Questionnaire on Current Disposition; RMSSD: root mean square of successive differences.