The effects of coherent breathing and blue light after an acute stress on sleepiness and the stress response in a workplace setting: A randomized double-blind cross-over trial.

Overview

Authors: Lucie Ráčková^1,2, Madison Diamond³, Markéta Makarová², Pavel Morcinek², Inès Butin³, Federico Nemmi³, Stanislas Boyer³, Laure Boyer⁴, Julie Bienertová Vašků⁵, Emma Chabani³

ORCID iDs: Lucie Ráčková, Emma Chabani

First Department of Neurology, St. Anne’s University Hospital and Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
RECETOX, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Human design Group, Toulouse, France
Institut de médecine et de physiologie spatiales (MEDES), Centre national d’études spatiales, Toulouse, France
Incubator of Kinanthropology Research, Faculty of Sports, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

Institutions: Masaryk University (Czechia); RECETOX (Czechia)

Journal: PloS one, volume 21, issue 9, article e0357293

Dates: received 29 July 2025; accepted 15 August 2026; published online 30 September 2026

Type: Research article · Language: English

License: CC BY

Identifiers: DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0357293 · PMID 42814696 · PMCID PMC13626309 · OpenAlex W7214948728

Open access: gold, a free copy (OpenAlex)

Status: code verified (how the code is found and verified)

Categories: EEG (modality), other (modality), human (organism), clinical / translational (subfield)

Methods: Spectral & time-frequency, Preprocessing, Statistics, Evoked potentials, Physiology & signal measures

MeSH: Respiration*, Sleepiness*, Stress, Psychological*, Adult, Blue Light, Cross-Over Studies, Double-Blind Method, Electroencephalography, Female, Heart Rate, Humans, Male, Subjective Stress, Workplace, Young Adult (* major topic)

Journal subjects: Biology and Life Sciences, Physiology, Physiological Processes, Respiration, Breathing, Research and Analysis Methods, Bioassays and Physiological Analysis, Electrophysiological Techniques, Brain Electrophysiology, Electroencephalography, Electrophysiology, Neurophysiology, Neuroscience, Brain Mapping, Medicine and Health Sciences, Clinical Medicine, Clinical Neurophysiology, Imaging Techniques, Neuroimaging, Sleep, Cardiac Electrophysiology, Electrocardiography, Psychology, Emotions, Social Sciences, Mental Health and Psychiatry, Psychological Stress, Relaxation (Psychology), Cognitive Science

Topic: Optical Imaging and Spectroscopy Techniques (Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging, Medicine), according to OpenAlex

Funding: Ministerstvo Školství, Mládeže a Tělovýchovy (LM2023069); EC | Horizon 2020 (EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation) (857560); Human design Group; MEDES

Citations: not cited yet (Europe PMC); 104 references in the paper

Abstract

This study evaluates the effectiveness of an innovative tertiary stress management intervention for workplace application, combining 0.1 Hz coherent breathing with blue light exposure via the ÉOS device. We hypothesize that the intervention can mitigate acute stress reactions and sleepiness more effectively than passive rest without external stimulation. Using a randomized-controlled crossover double-blind design in a workplace-based laboratory setting, we assessed the effect of an intervention following exposition to Maastricht Acute Stress Test in 29 individuals. Subjective stress (single item scale), sleepiness (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale), positive and negative affect (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule), along with heart rate variability (HRV) and electroencephalography metrics were evaluated using linear mixed-effect models. The intervention significantly reduced subjective stress by 31.23% (CI 21.41% and 41.83%), decreased sleepiness by 0.84 points (SE 0.17), and increased positive affect by 1.85 points (SE 0.54). No significant effect was found on negative affect, HRV, frontal alpha asymmetry or theta/beta ratio. The findings suggest that combining coherent breathing with blue light exposure effectively reduces acute stress and enhances mood without causing sleepiness, making it a promising workplace stress intervention. This study contributes to stress management research by demonstrating the potential of these tertiary stress management interventions to improve well-being and performance in occupational settings. Future research should evaluate the individual effects of each component, examine long-term outcomes, and include diverse populations to strengthen these findings.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Code

No file of the authors' code could be read here: it is described below, and read at its source.

Zenodo 20596627

License: CC-BY-4.0

State: the link answers, verified on 3 October 2026

Evidence: files inventoried

Size: 3 files

Software Heritage: not checked

Found in: “Data Availability”

Not found: README, license file, CITATION.cff, environment file, tests, continuous integration, documentation

Availability: 1 check, the latest on 3 October 2026: the link answers (HTTP 200)

3 October 2026: the link answers (HTTP 200)

At the source: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20596627

The paper's code and data availability statement is in the Data section.

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Data

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Data Availability

Anonymized data used for the analyses (questionnaires, HRV, EEG), as well as the RMarkdown script used to generate the supplementary material, are available on Zenodo at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20596627.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

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Version 1, 3 October 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 10 authors, 15 MeSH terms, 4 funders, 88 references.

Cite

This paper

Ráčková, L., Diamond, M., Makarová, M., Morcinek, P., Butin, I., Nemmi, F., Boyer, S., Boyer, L., Vašků, J. B., & Chabani, E. (2026). The effects of coherent breathing and blue light after an acute stress on sleepiness and the stress response in a workplace setting: A randomized double-blind cross-over trial. PloS one, 21(9), e0357293. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0357293

BibTeX

@article{rackova2026effects, author = {Ráčková, Lucie and Diamond, Madison and Makarová, Markéta and Morcinek, Pavel and Butin, Inès and Nemmi, Federico and Boyer, Stanislas and Boyer, Laure and Vašků, Julie Bienertová and Chabani, Emma}, title = {{The effects of coherent breathing and blue light after an acute stress on sleepiness and the stress response in a workplace setting: A randomized double-blind cross-over trial}}, journal = {PloS one}, year = {2026}, month = sep, volume = {21}, number = {9}, pages = {e0357293}, publisher = {PLOS}, issn = {1932-6203}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0357293}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0357293}, pmid = {42814696}, pmcid = {PMC13626309} }

RIS

TY - JOUR AU - Ráčková, Lucie AU - Diamond, Madison AU - Makarová, Markéta AU - Morcinek, Pavel AU - Butin, Inès AU - Nemmi, Federico AU - Boyer, Stanislas AU - Boyer, Laure AU - Vašků, Julie Bienertová AU - Chabani, Emma TI - The effects of coherent breathing and blue light after an acute stress on sleepiness and the stress response in a workplace setting: A randomized double-blind cross-over trial T2 - PloS one J2 - PLoS One PY - 2026 DA - 2026/09/30 VL - 21 IS - 9 SP - e0357293 SN - 1932-6203 PB - PLOS DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0357293 UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0357293 LA - en ER -

CSL-JSON

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