Indian journal of physiology and pharmacology
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Indian J. Physiol. Pharmacol. · Jan 2012
Randomized Controlled TrialInfluence of deep breathing exercise on spontaneous respiratory rate and heart rate variability: a randomised controlled trial in healthy subjects.
Studies show that yogic type of breathing exercises reduces the spontaneous respiratory rate. However, there are no conclusive studies on the effects of breathing exercise on heart rate variability. We investigated the effects of non-yogic breathing exercise on respiratory rate and heart rate variability. ⋯ In conclusion, the changes produced by simple deep slow breathing exercise in the respiratory rate and cardiac autonomic modulation of the intervention group were significant, when compared to the changes in the control group. Thus practice of deep slow breathing exercise improves heart rate variability in healthy subjects, without altering their cardiac autonomic balance. These findings have implications in the use of deep breathing exercises to improve cardiac autonomic control in subjects known to have reduced heart rate variability.