Effects of exercise on heart rate, blood pressure & pulse oximetry

               The heart rate of the individuals was measured using a pulse transducer on the right middle finger of their hand. The compared data specific to the change in heart rate can be seen in Figure 1a. It is shown that the heart rate did increase when the participants held their breath(M=55, SD=0.28) before exercise compared to the normal breathing condition (M=41, SD=0.38). The level of significance was stated at P<0.05 and so the data from the heart rate parameter, when a t-test was run, was found to not be significant. Due to the lack of significance, no further analysis was needed.
              We measured participants’ blood pressure using an automatic cuff to ensure a more accurate reading. We averaged the systolic blood pressures of each participant to create the graph in Figure 1b. The results showed that blood pressure was higher for participants during the normal breathing before exercise condition when compared to the holding breath before exercise condition.
                Participants pulse oximetry was measured using an oximeter pod because it provides fast and efficient way to calculate oxygen levels. Results show that the pulse oximetry decreased more when they were asked to hold their breath before exercise (M = 5, SD = 0.087) than it did during the normal breathing condition (M = 2, SD = 0.016) shown in Figure 1c. In order to compare the averaged total change for each of the conditions we ran a t-test and the p-value ended up not being significant, P<0.05.

Effects of exercise on reaction times