Changes in cortisol level in saliva following relaxation-activation autoregulative intervention.

The relaxation-activation autoregulative method (RAM) is a psychoregulative procedure characterized by typical autonomic patterns of relaxation and activation phases (blood pressure, electric skin resistance, heart beat, EEG, etc.). They are used as feedback information in the training of autoregulative abilities. RAM has a multidimensional (non-specific) tuning effect which is manifested by changes in the psychophysiological state (emotional tuning, physiological functioning and performance). It has a therapeutical effect on disorders with a psychic pathogenic component, e.g., essential hypertension. The increased production of adrenaline following the application of RAM was found in previous experiments.--The present experiment with a sample of six persons well mastering RAM has shown that the cortisol level following this psychoregulative intervention also rises significantly and that this rise has been recorded over three days, i.e., over the whole period of saliva sampling. It may be said that RAM has a non-specific, ergotropic (activating) subsequent effect and that this effect has the character of stress, more accurately eustress. Autogenic training, on the other hand, reduces the cortisol level.