The Activities of Human Autonomic Nervous System by Foot Bathing

족욕이 인체 자율 신경기능에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

We investigated the activities of autonomic nervous system during foot bathing. The effect of foot bathing was evaluated for four subjects by observing the characteristic of heart rate variability and bodily temperatures. The foot bathing was done with a commercial foot spa (Duches Co.) utilizing the four functional modes of the spa for two different temperatures of $35^{\circ}C\;and\;40^{\circ}C$. The four functional modes were clam, vibration, air bubbles, and both vibration and air bubbles. The experimental results showed that the temperature of foot and that of face right after foot bathing were not that different from each other. But, for heart rate variability, the activation of parasympathetic nerve showed distinctive increase at $40^{\circ}C$ of water temperature. In the analysis of heart rate variability for different functional modes, the change was not distinctive for different modes at $35^{\circ}$ of water temperature. However, at $40^{\circ}C$, the activation of sympathetic nerve showed distinctive increases with the increase in the complexity of functional modes.