Abstract
Summary. Objective Pranayama is known for improving various health conditions. The present study is aimed at investigating the effects of bhramari pranayama on aerodynamic and acoustic parameters of voice in healthy individuals. Study Design This is a pretest-posttest design study. Methods A total of 24 participants in the age range of 20 to 25 years completed the bhramari pranayama regimen for 30 sessions. Aerodynamic and acoustic assessments were done before and after pranayama sessions. Maximum phonation duration, pitch, loudness, subglottal pressure, glottal airflow, laryngeal resistance and conductance along with acoustical parameters such as average F0, jitter, and shimmer, soft phonation index, noise to harmonic ratio, cepstral peak prominence, and smoothened cepstral peak prominence were analysed. Results The results revealed significant improvement in the maximum phonation duration, glottal airflow and pressure, average fundamental frequency, and cepstral peak prominence after practice suggesting that it has an effect on voice parameters. Conclusion Bhramari pranayama is effective in improving the acoustic and aerodynamic parameters of voice. The same needs to be investigated in hyper- and hypofunctional voice disorders in the future studies.
Highlights
India, being the place of birth for many ancient traditional cultures, has given traditional form of postures called asanas in yoga and breathing techniques called pranayama, being practiced worldwide
Mean of maximum phonation duration (MPD) for all the vowels increased after practicing bhramari pranayama
This shows that bhramari pranayama along with postural management has an effect on increasing the lung functions and breathing pattern, which justifies the results of the present study
Summary
India, being the place of birth for many ancient traditional cultures, has given traditional form of postures called asanas in yoga and breathing techniques called pranayama, being practiced worldwide. Pranayama, being one of the eight limbs of yoga, deals with the correct breathing pattern and many exercises related to breath [1,2,3,4]. It regulates the vital forces of the body and helps in curing lung related and voice related disorders [5,6,7,8,9]. There are various styles and forms of pranayama to achieve good breathing pattern, to cure many disorders One such technique called “bhramari” is intensely practiced in yogic exercises. Bhramari pranayama is said to activate one of the energy focal centre called “Vishuddhi chakra” located in the throat region, which is responsible for activating the voice box used for speech communication [12]
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