News

April 2026

Reserach Topic in Frontiers in Network Physiology

The journal Frontiers in Network Physiology offers a reserach topic on The physiological network underlying the stimulatory effects of slow-paced and meditative breathing. The goal is to better understand the positive effects of slow, deep breathing through the analysis of interactions between multiple signals (e.g., ECG, respiration, blood pressure, EEG). Manuscripts may be submitted until October 26, 2026. For more information, please visit the link above.

February 2026

Are everyday movements such as standing up and sitting down beneficial to health?

“Sitting is the new smoking!” - this is how the health-related effects of sedentary work could be succinctly summarized. To compensate for the adverse health effects of sitting too much, moderate to vigorous physical activity for at least 30 minutes per day is recommended (Ekelund et al. 2020). This requires a significant amount of daily effort which demands time, physical ability and motivation.

Simple everyday movements (“light physical activity”) have been given little consideration in terms of their potential impact on health - the energy expenditure of these brief movements is too low to be relevant to health. From the point of view of cardiovascular regulation, however, movements such as standing up from a chair and sitting down are relevant: we have shown that both movements cause a clear, uniform pattern in the heart rate (transitional oscillation) as an expression of cardiovascular regulation, which takes about 20 to 30 seconds (see Heidelbach MJ, Cysarz D, Edelhäuser F. Typical everyday movements cause specific patterns in heart rate. Front Physiol 2024 15: 1379739). This happens every time we stand up and sit down regardless of age (only the amplitude decreases with increasing age).

So can regularly standing up and sitting down have a positive impact on health? We think so, because every time we stand up (and sit down), the cardiovascular regulations involved are activated and thus trained. Health benefits of standing up have also been found in a study with postmenopausal women and high blood pressure: the intervention to reduce sitting, increasing the amount of standing up (and the associated sitting down) resulted in a reduction in blood pressure (Hartman et al. 2025). Our study may explain this effect: more frequent activation, and thus increased training of the cardiovascular regulation involved, improves regulation and leads to a reduction in blood pressure.

July 2025

The research topic Mind-body medicine and its impacts on psychological networks, quality of life, and health - Volume II was very well received. In total 40 manuscripts were published, and now the editorial with an overview of all articles has been published: Schulz S, Cysarz D, Musial F, Seifert G. Editorial: Mind-body medicine and its impacts on psychological networks, quality of life, and health - Volume II. Front. Integr. Neurosci. 19: 1658381.

July 2024

The heart rhythm is influenced by many functions of the human organism. A closer look at the heart rhythm reveals, among other things, that many simple everyday movements show a specific pattern in the heart rhythm. We investigated such influences for two everyday movements: kneeling on one knee ('tying shoelaces') followed by standing up, and raising and stretching the arms while sitting ('stretching and yawning'). Both movements show specific and repeatable heart rate patterns (see Heidelbach MJ, Cysarz D, Edelhäuser F. Typical everyday movements cause specific patterns in heart rate. Front Physiol 2024 15: 1379739). Hence, even these simple everyday movements stimulate cardiovascular regulation in a specific way.

May 2024

The publication on the synchronisation between hexmeter recitation and heart rate is about 20 years old (see Cysarz D et al. Am J Physiol - Heart Circ Physiol 2004 287(2): H579-H587), but still attracts sporadic interest. For the BBC London podcast series ‘Just one Thing’ ('If time is tight, what's the one thing that you should be doing to improve your health and wellbeing? Michael Mosley reveals surprisingly simple top tips that are scientifically proven to change your life'), the speech therapist, intiator and co-author of the study, Dietrich von Bonin from Bern (Switzerland), was interviewed about the positive effects of reading poetry aloud.

Listen to the podcast episode ‘Read a poem’ of ‘Just one thing’ on the BBC website.

Enjoy listening - read your favourite poetry aloud and benefit from the positive health effects.

February 2024

Research Topic

The journal Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience (IF: 3.5) is open for submissions to the research topic Mind-body medicine and its impacts on psychological networks, quality of life, and health - Volume II (topic editors: Steffen Schulz, Frauke Musial, Dirk Cysarz and Georg Seifert). Submit your manuscript by 31st July 2024.