Publication: Effects of using breathing appplication and eeg muse device to enhance state level bowlers’ performance
Date
2018-07
Authors
Raza, Muhammad Qasim
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Abstract
Given the key role of coping strategies in sports, this study sought to determine whether the use of breathing app and EEG-muse neurofeedback training would cause a reduction in arousal level and to enhance the scoring performance of the Malaysian state level tenpin bowlers. Besides, Heart Rate Variability indices were also measured to predict performance outcomes. Eleven State-level bowlers volunteered to took part in the study. The participants were exposed to three research conditions namely control, breathing intervention and muse intervention. The study was conducted over three weeks, with a research condition each week at random order. Prior to the intervention, the participants were required to answer the CSAI- 2R questionnaire; then the intervention was applied after which the players performed three sets of tenpin bowling simulated competition. The CSAI-2R questionnaire was again completed by the participants after post-performance. The HRV indices namely (SDNN and RMSSD) were also measured during the resting state of the bowlers (prior to the performance) and immediately following muse intervention. The results revealed that there was no significant difference in the arousal level of the bowlers following the intervention (p > 0.05). The bowling performance improved following the interventions as the results were significant (p = 0.032), which showed that Muse intervention has the highest bowling performance scores (359.09 ± 20.48), followed by breathing apps intervention (354.64 ± 21.68), and then control condition (344.27 ± 21.15). The results for HRV indices were only significant for RMSSD (p = 0.004). The bowling performance of the bowlers increased following intervention while the interventions did not have any effect over the sub-scales of CSAI-2R. The HRV indices also did not appear to be significant in predicting bowlers’ performance although the RMSSD results changed but were higher instead of being lower. The findings of the study suggest thatthere is a positive effect of EEG-muse NFB and breathing app use in enhancing bowlers’performance.