Introduction: Breathing affects our respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological, gastrointestinal, muscular, and psychological wellbeing. Breathing also influences our sleep, memory, and concentration ability to and plays an important role in improving our energy level. To study the effect of deep breathing exercise on heart rate variability of Pranayama, most known as deep breathing exercises, is a compound word with Pran and Ayama. The increase in HRV may be since the reduction in breathing frequency caused by the breathing training allows the respiration to modulate the sympathetic cardiac outflow along with the vagal outflow which result in increased HRV. There are no known studies reported the heart rate variability (HRV) changes either during or after the practice of Bhramari Pranayama. Hence, this study aims at evaluating the HRV changes during and after the practice. Materials and Methods: Thirty healthy volunteers with the mean ± standard deviation age of 23.50 ± 3.01 years was recruited. All the subjects performed Bhramari pranayama for the duration of 5 min. Thirty healthy volunteers were taken as controls without intervention. Assessments were taken before, during, and immediately after the practice of pranayama. Statistical analysis was performed using students paired samples t-test, Wilcoxon signed-ranks test and repeated measures of analysis of variance and Post-hoc analysis with Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons. Results: Results of this study showed a significant decrease in HR and low frequency spectrum of HRV and a significant increase in high frequency spectrum of HRV during the practice of Bhramari which revert to normal after the practice. Conclusion: Results of this study suggests that there might be a parasympathetic dominance during the practice of Bhramari. However, further studies are required to warrant the findings of this study.

Introduction: Breathing affects our respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological, gastrointestinal, muscular, and psychological wellbeing. Breathing also influences our sleep, memory, and concentration ability to and plays an important role in improving our energy level. To study the effect of deep breathing exercise on heart rate variability of Pranayama, most known as deep breathing exercises, is a compound word with Pran and Ayama. The increase in HRV may be since the reduction in breathing frequency caused by the breathing training allows the respiration to modulate the sympathetic cardiac outflow along with the vagal outflow which result in increased HRV. There are no known studies reported the heart rate variability (HRV) changes either during or after the practice of Bhramari Pranayama. Hence, this study aims at evaluating the HRV changes during and after the practice. Materials and Methods: Thirty healthy volunteers with the mean ± standard deviation age of 23.50 ± 3.01 years was recruited. All the subjects performed Bhramari pranayama for the duration of 5 min. Thirty healthy volunteers were taken as controls without intervention. Assessments were taken before, during, and immediately after the practice of pranayama. Statistical analysis was performed using students paired samples t-test, Wilcoxon signed-ranks test and repeated measures of analysis of variance and Post-hoc analysis with Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons. Results: Results of this study showed a significant decrease in HR and low frequency spectrum of HRV and a significant increase in high frequency spectrum of HRV during the practice of Bhramari which revert to normal after the practice. Conclusion: Results of this study suggests that there might be a parasympathetic dominance during the practice of Bhramari. However, further studies are required to warrant the findings of this study.