Psychophysiological study: Ambulatory measures of the ANS in performing artists

Professional performing artists routinely manage stressful demands encountered during public performances. Fourteen professional performing artists (6 dancers, 6 opera singers, and 2 conductors) rehearsed and performed in a concert hall setting while wearing the Vivometric LifeShirt, an ambulatory instrument that measures autonomic regulation. Contrary to our hypothesis, that greater parasympathetic changes from baseline to performance would be related to higher perceived states of subjective flow during performance, we found decreased cardiac autonomic balance (CAB) and regulatory capacity (CAR) was related to dispositional and state flow in performing artists. As a group, they endorsed moderate to high dispositional and state flow as measured by two selfreport instruments. This case study is the first study to investigate psychophysiological flow states during public performances. A larger sample size is needed to understand the role autonomic regulation plays in subjective flow experiences; however, the findings in this study suggest that decreased autonomic regulatory capacity is not necessarily deleterious to performance flow experiences.