Abstract

Yoga is an ancient Indian technique followed from thousands of years. Yoga consists of different postures, asanas, pranayam and meditation. Beneficial effects of yoga are proved in normal and diseased subjects. Out of different types of pranayamas, we decided to review the effect of bhramari pranayam on health. We reviewed effect of bhramari pranayam on different body parameters like heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure(SBP), diastolic blood pressure(DBP), mean blood pressure(MBP), heart rate variability, cognitive effects, stress level, memory, concentration, social responses, cold pressure test etc. Bhrarami pranayam involves slow deep inspiration followed by prolonged expiration in which humming bee type of sound is produced through nostrils. The studies were searched through online resource database like google scholar, embase , pubmed and manual search. We searched 41 articles out of which 37 articles were excluded because they did not match with our inclusion criteria. So finally we included 14 study articles for review. We found that many studies demonstrated decrease in heart rate and blood pressure during resting state as well as during cold pressure test in subjects practicing bhramari pranayam. Some studies also demonstrated reduction in stress, anxiety, depression, increased production of alpha waves in EEG, mind relaxation, state of peacefulness in subjects practicing bhramari pranayam. All these studies concluded that practicing bhramari pranayam regularly induces a state of parasympathetic dominance in body and reduction in sympathetic activity. This reduces the risk of different diseases like hypertension, angina, stroke etc. We reviewed that although all these studies demonstrated beneficial effect of bhramari pranayam on health but there is need to do research studies for longer time duration and to increase sample size. Also there is need to measure the changes in the level of stress markers in relation with bhramari pramayam.

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