Variations of heart rate variability under varied physical environmental factors

In this study, we estimated the behavior of the diversity of physiological responses under varied physical environmental factors by measuring variations of heart rate variability (HRV), an index of activity of cardiac autonomic control. Seven healthy young male adults consented and participated in the study. The environmental conditions consisted of thermal, lighting, and acoustic conditions. Two components of HRV were measured. one was the low frequency (LF) component of HRV, which provided a quantitative index of the sympathetic and parasympathetic (vagal) activities controlling the heart rate (HR). The other component measured was the high frequency (HF) component, which provided an index of the vagal tone. The percent contribution of physical environmental factors to the variations in HRV indices were calculated by ANOVA. The contribution of physical environmental factors to the variations in HR was higher than the contribution of HF and LF. However, the contribution of these factors was lower than the contribution related with individual difference in all indices. This result showed that the individual diversity of physiological responses is not a negligible quantity.