Treatment blinding
HEART
None of the participants had received any osteopathic treatment prior to the study nor did they have any knowledge about osteopathic procedures. To ensure blinding, participants did not contact one another until all measurements were collected. The randomization code was kept by the therapist and only revealed once the final results had been collected. Participants remained blinded to treatment allocations until all participants had completed the study. At the end of the intervention, participants were asked to guess which treatment they had undergone. Measurements were recorded by a psychologist who was blinded to intervention.The following designations for heart rate variability measurements were adopted: HR—Heart Rate, LF—Low Frequency and HF—High Frequency. LF and HF were measured in msBefore starting the study.After 5 weeks, HRV was measured in the CO group and in the CS group (after 5 weeks of cranial techniques and placebo). The following designations were used for heart rate variability (HRV) (Table After completion of the study.To determine the effect of cranial techniques on heart rate variability, the CS group (cranial techniques group) and the control group (CO) were analysed separately and independently. As the data obtained do not follow a normal distribution and are coupled data, the non-parametric Friedman test