Pranayama scores over a jog

[Guest guest]

Pranayama scores over a jog

Improves cardio-vascular efficiency: Study

 

Hyderabad, Sept. 18: Jogging along Tank Bund does

help, but doing pranayama for thirty minutes every day

in the serenity of your home is far more beneficial

for your heart and lungs. Now, there is scientific

proof for it.

 

A joint study by yoga experts from the city-based

Vemana Yoga Research Institute and scientists from

National Institute of Nutrition reported that those

practising pranayama exhibited better fitness results.

 

 

Also, the cardio-vascular and cardio-respiratory

efficiency improved substantially for yoga

practitioners as compared to joggers or walkers.

 

Pranayama is a basic yogic breathing technique, of

which one of the methods is nadisodhana, where

breathing is performed through alternate nostrils

while sitting in a meditative posture.

 

The results of the research, conducted by K V V

Prasad, P S Raju, M Venkata Reddy and K J R Murthy of

the Vemana Research Institute and Y Venkata Ramana of

the National Institute Of Nutrition, was published in

the Journal of Exercise Physiology.

 

The study was conducted on 30 people and identified

the use of energy while doing pranayama compared to

standard physical activities like treadmill-walking,

or field-walking or a graded physical exercise.

 

It was observed that while energy output in pranayama

was very high, the energy consumption was minuscule.

Jogging resulted in exactly opposite results.

 

The heart rate and oxygen consumption during the yogic

exercise were significantly lower than during jogging,

indicating that energy cost for pranayam was lower.

 

Comparatively, while the energy cost on the body

during treadmill-walking was 3.59 kilocalories per

minute, it was 2.80 KCal/min for field walking and

2.23 KCal/minute for Pranayama. The heart rates during

these three forms of exercise was 80.2, 74.8 and 66.9

beats per minute respectively. The study indicated

that in pranayama subjects, the body was using oxygen

“more efficiently (aerobically) rather than shifting

to less-efficient anaerobic metabolism.”

 

The oxygen pulse rate was 8.98 ml/beat for treadmill

walking, 7.39 for field-walking and 6.66 for

pranayama. The subjects also reported low fatigue as

against other forms of exercise.

 

Besides improving physiological functions and physical

endurance, the exercise also lowers the lactate level

in blood and is beneficial for those suffering from

diabetes, asthma and hyper-tension.

 

Previously, studies on nadisodhana have shown an

improvement in various cardio-respiratory functions

among normal volunteers and also in controlling

diseases like diabetes. A few studies have reported

increased oxygen consumption during different types of

pranayama by direct measurement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

..