Immediate effect of Kapalbhathi pranayama on short term heart rate variability (HRV) in healthy volunteers.
OBJECTIVES
Kapalbhathi Pranayam (Kapal = forehead; bhati = shining) is a breathing exercise that has been practiced to cleanse the frontal brain in traditional practices like yoga. Still, there exists a dearth of literature on the effect of Kapalbhathi pranayama on physiological systems. So this present study was carried out to find the immediate effect of "kapalbhathi Pranayam" practice for the period of 5 min on cardiac autonomic function among the healthy volunteers.


MATERIALS AND METHODS
Apparently 50 healthy volunteers includes both sex were participated. They were randomly divided into Pranayama (n-25) and control (n-25) group. Pranayama group was practiced kapalbhathi pranayama 5 min (5 cycles) and control group was allowed to do normal breathing (12-16 breath/min). Lead II ECG was recorded for 5 min using simple AD converter before, immediately after practice and 20 min of recovery period.


RESULTS
One way Analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by post hoc test was done using R statistical software. There was a significant (p < 0.05) parasympathetic withdrawal (Root Mean Square of the Successive Differences (RMSSD) - p < 0.04 and HF n.u - p < 0.05) was found in the pranayama group immediately after practice and its was changed to parasympathetic domination (RMSSD - p < 0.04 and HF n.u - p < 0.05) after 20 min of recovery period.


CONCLUSION
The present study suggested that though there was parasympathetic withdrawal immediately after practicing kapalbhathi pranayama, 20 min after the recovery period showed a parasympathetic domination in the pranayama group subjects. However, further studies are required to warrant the findings of this study.
['Lalitha|S|S|', 'Maheshkumar|K|K|', 'Shobana|R|R|', 'Deepika|C|C|']
D001341:Autonomic Nervous System D001945:Breathing Exercises D005260:Female D064368:Healthy Volunteers D006321:Heart D006339:Heart Rate D006801:Humans D008297:Male D015013:Yoga D055815:Young Adult
pranayama heart rate variability cardiac autonomic function recovery period