Relaxation or Regulation: The Acute Effect of Mind-Body Exercise on Heart Rate Variability and Subjective State in Experienced Qi Gong Practitioners

Table 1

Demographic variables and descriptive statistics for the overall samples and subsamples.

	Overall sample N = 42		Chinese sample n = 21		German sample n = 21		Test statistics (comparison of national subsamples)
	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Mean	SD
Age	42.60	18.30	28.81	11.56	56.38	12.4	t40 = 7.45  < 0.001
Sex (f/m)	67.4%; 32.6%		61.9%; 38.1%		76.2%; 23.8%		= 1.00  > 0.1
Education							= 12.35; = 0.002
(i) Middle school	18.6%				38.1%
(ii) High school	18.7%		14.3%		23.8%
(iii) University	62.8%		85.7%		38.1%
Qi Gong experience
Years	8.54	5.97	5.64	4.38	11.43	6.02	t36.53 = 3.56; = 0.001
∅ days p. week	3.34	1.62	3.81	1.4	2.88	1.72	t40 = 1.92; = 0.063
∅ minutes p. practice	53.74	50.48	77.24	58.25	30.24	25.91	t27.61 = 3.38; = 0.002
Duration of Qigong exercise in the experiment
Qi Gong 1 (min)	10:38	02:37	12:18	01:45	08:58	02:21	t40 = 5.18; < 0.001
Qi Gong 2 (min)	10:47	02:22	12:19	01:20	09:16	02:15	t40 = 5.34; < 0.001

Average days of Qi Gong practice per week (∅ days . week); average duration in minutes per practice (∅ minutes . practice).