The Effect of Long-Term Learning of BaduanJin on Emotion Regulation: Evidence from Resting-State Frontal EEG Asymmetry

Abstract

Purpose

Baduanjin, as a Chinese traditional fitness exercise, can help people regulate emotions and promote their physical and psychological health. However, the underlying neural mechanisms have not been thoroughly explored. This study aimed to examine the effects of differences in the level of Baduanjin learning on individuals’ brain and psychological response related to emotion regulation.

Methods

Twenty-two participants with long-term Baduanjin learning (for more than one year), and 21 participants with short-term Baduanjin learning (for approximately three months) were recruited. All participants were asked to do a complete 12-minute set of Baduanjin. Before and after doing Baduanjin, their resting-state EEG signals were collected, besides, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) and the Profile of Mood States-Short Form (POMS-SF) were used to assess participants’ emotion regulation strategies and abilities.

Results

The results of psychological measurement indicated that participants in the long-term group were more likely to use cognitive reappraisal as an emotion regulation strategy compared to participants in the short-term group (p<0.05). Moreover, the analysis of the frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) showed that participants in the long-term group rather than the short-term group exhibited significant left lateralization after doing Baduanjin (p<0.05).

Conclusion

The findings provide preliminary evidence for the neural mechanism underlying how long-term Baduanjin learning promotes individuals’ emotion regulation indexed by FAA. The study provides a new paradigm for research on how Baduanjin affects emotional regulation.

Keywords:

• emotion
• sport
• resting state electroencephalogram
• frontal alpha asymmetry

Data Sharing Statement

The data can be obtained by contacting the corresponding author for reasonable requests.

Ethical Approval

The study is in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and this research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Affiliated Zhongda Hospital, Southeast University (2019ZDSYLL073-P01).

Acknowledgments

We are very appreciative of all the researchers who collected and processed the data, and all the survey participants who devoted their time and effort to cooperating actively with the study.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the 14th Five-Year Plan 2021 Annual Project of Education Science of Jiangsu Province (T-C/2021/86), the Key Plan of Youth Special Project of Jiangsu Province’s Education Science “14th Five-Year Plan” (C-b/2021/01/02).