Participants were studied between 9 00 AM and 4 00 PM, and were instructed to refrain from caffeinated beverages and food for one hour prior to the time of their scheduled experiment.
Subjects remained in bed 1 h before and for the duration of the study and were instructed to refrain from using their arms to minimize effects of movement (or exercise) on hemodynamic measurements.
Furthermore, the resting state is defined as a state of relaxed wakefulness when subjects have their eyes closed and are instructed to refrain from any structured thoughts.
Mens et al. [ 46] included two comparison groups - one group with instructions to train the longitudinal trunk muscle system involving rectus abdominis muscle, longitudinal parts of the erector spinae muscle, and quadratus lumborum muscle, and the other instructed to refrain from exercise.
Taken as a whole, our results suggest that the longitudinal course of patients receiving Mindfulness-based treatment, and who were instructed to refrain from medical prophylaxis (which was verified by the dairy records participants maintained throughout the study), was overall very similar to that for patients who were administered conventional medical prophylaxis, with few exceptions noted.
They were naive to respiratory physiology experiments, were not sleep deprived, and had been instructed to refrain from consuming alcohol or psychotropic substances of any kind during the preceding 24 hours.
All study personnel responsible for patient observations and for data analysis were blinded to the subjects' treatment status, and patients were specifically instructed to refrain from discussing the particulars of their interval treatment status with the study personnel.
Because bedtimes and rising times were quite different when participants were on night call, and this could lead to both compliance problems and difficulties in interpretation, participants were instructed to refrain from completing the KSS and KSD when they were on night call.
80 Participant setup and instrumentation: Participants will be instructed to refrain from any strenuous physical activity in the 48 h prior to data collection to minimise possible transient changes in the neuromuscular properties of the muscle.
