Hemodynamic Observations on a Yogic Breathing Technique Claimed to Help Eliminate and Prevent Heart Attacks: A Pilot Study

Pranayama and Nursing

The importance of complementary and supportive applications is increasing. Pranayama, which is one of these methods, has a positive effect on health with its philosophy and discipline that are specific to it. It is also an important step in yoga, which is an ancient Indian science and lifestyle, and is translated as "breath science, breath control, and willful breathing." In Sanskrit, pranayama consists of the words prana, which means "life force, vital energy, vitality," and yama, which means "control." According to the science of yoga, if humans can learn to control prana, they can also control their body, emotions, and mind. The fact that pranayama is a simple self-control technique that increases the awareness of breathing and shows that it is an influential and cost-effective practice for the patient in the management of symptoms, which is a responsibility of nurses. In this respect, the purpose of the present study was to provide information to health care professionals to be able to use pranayama types in symptom management, to provide evidence-based information to health care professions concerning concepts and philosophy of pranayama to guide nurses in clinical practice. For this purpose, the results of the studies searched in the PubMed database using the key words "pranayama" and "nursing" are shared.

Effects of yogic breath regulation: A narrative review of scientific evidence

Pranayama or breath regulation is considered as an essential component of Yoga, which is said to influence the physiological systems. We present a comprehensive overview of scientific literature in the field of yogic breathing. We searched PubMed, PubMed Central and IndMed for citations for keywords “Pranayama” and “Yogic Breathing”. The search yielded a total of 1400 references. Experimental papers, case studies and case series in English, revealing the effects of yogic breathing were included in the review. The preponderance of literature points to beneficial effects of yogic breathing techniques in both physiological and clinical setups. Advantageous effects of yogic breathing on the neurocognitive, psychophysiological, respiratory, biochemical and metabolic functions in healthy individuals were elicited. They were also found useful in management of various clinical conditions. Overall, yogic breathing could be considered safe, when practiced under guidance of a trained teacher. Considering the positive effects of yogic breathing, further large scale studies with rigorous designs to understand the mechanisms involved with yogic breathing are warranted.

Yoga: An Ancient Occupational Therapy?

Yoga is a complete system of occupational regulation, based on complex theories that address occupational risk factors while relating occupation directly to health and wellbeing. Although aspects of yoga have been used in Western occupational therapy settings, some of its underlying theories may have been overlooked. If validated by research, these theories may enrich occupational therapy philosophy. Yogic techniques of potential clinical use include pulse diagnosis, meditation and breath control. These are not described in detail in this opinion piece, but should be the subject of thorough literature reviews and, perhaps, further research.

Effects of Various Prāṇāyāma on Cardiovascular and Autonomic Variables

Cardiovascular functions are controlled by neural factors, temperature, hormones, etc., Of these, neural factors primarily concern the autonomic nervous system, which plays a major role in maintaining and regulating cardiac functions, e.g., blood pressure and heart rate. Prāṇāyāma is one of the most important yogic practices. There are various review articles on Yoga and its effects but, though Prāṇāyāma is a part of yoga, there is lack of review articles. To the best of our knowledge there is no known review article on effect of various Prāṇāyāma on cardiovascular and autonomic variables. To provide a general overview about the effect of various prāṇāyāma (breathing techniques) on cardiovascular and autonomic variables. A narrative review was performed based on the available scientific literature. An electronic data search was performed in Medline/PubMed database to review relevant articles, using keywords such as "Prāṇāyāma, Yogic breathing techniques, Unilateral nostril breathing, Alternate nostril breathing, Kapalbhati, Bhastrika and Bhramari Pranayama". All the relevant articles published from 1988 to 06-04-2016 were included in this review. Slow type of yogic breathing technique was reported to produce beneficial effect on cardiovascular and autonomic variables while fast breathing techniques do not produce such effects. There is lack of consistency in the results of specific nostril yogic breathing techniques and the mechanisms behind the effects of various prāṇāyāma. This review suggests that different types of Prāṇāyāma techniques produce different effects and the mechanisms behind these effects are not fully understood.

The effect of consistent practice of yogic breathing exercises on the human cardiorespiratory system

The purpose of this investigation was to quantify the cardiovascular, respiratory, and cerebrovascular effects of two common yogic breathing exercises (YBE): bhastrika and chaturbhuj; and to determine the effect of their consistent practice on chemosensitivity. The first study was cross-sectional and compared experienced yogic breathers (YB) with matched controls; whereas the second was a 10-week longitudinal training study. The results support four major findings. First chaturbhuj resulted in a hypoxic stimulus in experienced YB compared to control [end-tidal oxygen tension (P_ETO₂), YB: 77.5±5.7mmHg, P<0.05; control: 94.3±12.0mmHg]. Second, performance of chaturbhuj resulted in cyclic oscillations of mean arterial pressure (MAP), heart rate (HR), and middle cerebral artery velocity (MCAv) consistent with the phases of respiration. Third, post training, performance of bhastrika reduced P_ETO₂ (end breath-hold: 90.8 8±12.1mmHg) compared to rest (100.1±7.4, P<0.05); it also resulted in significantly increased MAP at end breath-hold (96.7±13.0mmHg) compared to rest (83.0±6.6mmHg, P<0.05) and significantly increased mean MCAv (end breath-hold: 87.4±23.0cm/s, P<0.05; rest: 55.8±26.3cm/s). Fourth, experienced YB had lower central chemosensitivity than controls (YB: 3.4±0.4; control: 4.6±1.2L/min/mmHg; P<0.05). In conclusion, YBE significantly alter end-tidal gases, resulting in complex oscillations of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular variables, and if practiced consistently, may reduce chemosensitivity.

Nervous Facilitation in Cardiodynamic Response of Exercising Athletes to Superimposed Mental Tasks: Implications in Depressive Disorder

Introduction : Motor commands to perform exercise tasks may also induce activation of cardiovascular centres to supply the energy needs of the contracting muscles. Mental stressors per se may also influence cardiovascular homeostasis. We investigated the cardiovascular response of trained runners simultaneously engaged in mental and physical tasks to establish if aerobically trained subjects could develop, differently from untrained ones, nervous facilitation in the brain cardiovascular centre. Methods : Cardiovascular responses of 8 male middle-distance runners (MDR), simultaneously engaged in mental (colour-word interference test) and physical (cycle ergometer exercise) tasks, were compared with those of 8 untrained subjects. Heart rate, cardiac (CI) and stroke indexes were assessed by impedance cardiography while arterial blood pressures were assessed with a brachial sphygmomanometer. Results : Only in MDR simultaneous engagement in mental and physical tasks induced a significant CI increase which was higher (p<0.05) than that obtained on summing CI values from each task separately performed. Conclusion : Aerobic training, when performed together with a mental effort, induced a CI oversupply which allowed a redundant oxygen delivery to satisfy a sudden fuel demand from exercising muscles by utilizing aerobic sources of ATP, thus shifting the anaerobic threshold towards a higher work load. From data of this study it may also be indirectly stated that, in patients with major depressive disorder, the promotion of regular low-intensity exercise together with mental engagement could ameliorate the perceived physical quality of life, thus reducing their heart risk associated with physical stress.

Hemodynamic effects of slow breathing: does the pattern matter beyond the rate?

PURPOSE

Patterned breathing allows standardized serial measurements of heart rate variability and baroreflex indices. The slow breathing augments these parameters, and regular exercises, including yoga breathing practices with even respiratory rates have long-term beneficial effects in cardiovascular diseases. The role of temporization of breathing phases, i.e. the ratio of expiration to inspiration, is not known. In order to characterize the hemodynamic and autonomic responses during varying breathing phases 27 volunteers performed three short breathing sessions at 6/minutes frequency with 5:5, 3:7 and 7:3 inspiration expiration ratios.

RESULTS

The immediate responses in arterial pressure and heart rate were negligible. The time domain parameters of heart rate variability (SDRR, PNN50,RMSSD) increased significantly with patterned breathing. So did the spontaneous baroreflex gain of increasing sequences (up-BRS, from 12 ± 7 to 17 ± 10 ms/mmHg, p < 0.05), and the cross-spectral low frequency gain, the LFalpha (from 11 ± 7 to 15 ± 7 ms/mmHg, p < 0.05). None of these parameters differed significantly from each other while using any of tested inspiratory-expiratory patterns.

CONCLUSION

The major determinant of autonomic responses induced by slow patterned breathing is the breathing rate itself. From our observations, it follows that slow breathing exercises performed either with diagnostic or therapeutic purpose could be simplified, allowing more extensive investigations.

Volitional control of heartbeat and its dependence on pallium

It is believed that we cannot change our heart rhythm by will because the heartbeat is mainly controlled by the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which cannot be affected directly by subjective will. An experiment was designed to determine whether the heartbeat and ANS could be controlled by volition, and, if it is true, how they were controlled. It was demonstrated that the ANS could be partly controlled by volition. The volition, which tended to slow down the heartbeat, initiated synchronized activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, inhibited the sympathetic system, and then decreased the heartbeat. On the other hand, another kind of volition, which sped up the heartbeat, initiated desynchronized activity at the precentral, central, parietal, and occipital regions, inhibited the parasympathetic system and excited the sympathetic system, and then increased the heartbeat. Moreover, information flow from posterior cortex to anterior cortex was observed during the experiment. The parietal area played an important role in triggering the sensorimotor cortex and integrating the information, and the information flow from the central and precentral cortex to heart was dominant. All that demonstrated that volition can partly control the heartbeat, but the behavior was different from the motor nervous system.

Old and new controversies in the alternative treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

Use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has become widespread in both referral and primary care populations. We review the purported mechanism of action and available evidence for selected CAM therapies for ADHD. Enduring controversies, such as elimination of artificial food additives, colors, and/or preservatives; the effect of sugar on behavior in children; and the use of EEG biofeedback, have been well studied but lack support as effective sole treatments for ADHD. The initial evidence for some emerging CAM therapies, such as essential fatty acid supplementation, yoga, massage, homeopathy, and green outdoor spaces, suggests potential benefits as part of an overall ADHD treatment plan. More rigorously designed studies are needed to evaluate their effectiveness as single therapy for ADHD.