Abstract
Slow breathing increases cardiac-vagal baroreflex sensitivity (BRS), improves oxygen saturation, lowers blood pressure, and reduces anxiety. Within the yoga tradition slow breathing is often paired with a contraction of the glottis muscles. This resistance breath “ujjayi” is performed at various rates and ratios of inspiration/expiration. To test whether ujjayi had additional positive effects to slow breathing, we compared BRS and ventilatory control under different breathing patterns (equal/unequal inspiration/expiration at 6 breath/min, with/without ujjayi), in 17 yoga-naive young healthy participants. BRS increased with slow breathing techniques with or without expiratory ujjayi (P < 0.05 or higher) except with inspiratory + expiratory ujjayi. The maximal increase in BRS and decrease in blood pressure were found in slow breathing with equal inspiration and expiration. This corresponded with a significant improvement in oxygen saturation without increase in heart rate and ventilation. Ujjayi showed similar increase in oxygen saturation but slightly lesser improvement in baroreflex sensitivity with no change in blood pressure. The slow breathing with equal inspiration and expiration seems the best technique for improving baroreflex sensitivity in yoga-naive subjects. The effects of ujjayi seems dependent on increased intrathoracic pressure that requires greater effort than normal slow breathing.
Highlights
Respiratory research documents that reduced breathing rate, hovering around 5-6 breaths per minute in the average adult, can increase vagal activation leading to reduction in sympathetic activation, increased cardiac-vagal baroreflex sensitivity (BRS), and increased parasympathetic activation all of which correlated with mental and physical health [1,2,3,4]
Engaging ujjayi breathing on the exhalation had the effect of reducing the increase in BRS of slow breathing alone, and this was further reduced with ujjayi on the inspiration and expiration
The present study found that, in most forms of slow breathing performed in yogic breathing naive participants, there were increased BRS and oxygen saturation, with reduced blood pressures and chemoreflex sensitivity
Summary
Respiratory research documents that reduced breathing rate, hovering around 5-6 breaths per minute in the average adult, can increase vagal activation leading to reduction in sympathetic activation, increased cardiac-vagal baroreflex sensitivity (BRS), and increased parasympathetic activation all of which correlated with mental and physical health [1,2,3,4]. The slow breathing increases the oxygen absorption that follows greater tidal volume (Vt), as a result of reduction in the effects of anatomical and physiological dead space [7, 8]. This might in turn produce another positive effect, that is, a reduction in the need of breathing. A reduction in chemoreflex sensitivity and, via their reciprocal relationships, an increase in BRS, have been documented with slow breathing [9,10,11,12,13]
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