Health Impacts of Yoga and Pranayama: A State‑of‑the‑Art Review
Open accessAbstract
Thousands of years ago yoga originated in India, and in present day and age, an alarming awareness was observed in health and natural remedies among people by yoga and pranayama which has been proven an effective method for improving health in addition to prevention and management of diseases. With increasing scientific research in yoga, its therapeutic aspects are also being explored. Yoga is reported to reduce stress and anxiety, improves autonomic functions by triggering neurohormonal mechanisms by the suppression of sympathetic activity, and even, now‑a‑days, several reports suggested yoga is beneficial for physical health of cancer patients. Such global recognition of yoga also testifies to India’s growing cultural influence.
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Voluntary regulated breathing practices may offer an effective, accessible, and risk-free solution for stress and anxiety.
“Voluntary regulated breathing practices may offer such a solution.”
From Breathing Practices for Stress and Anxiety Reduction: Conceptual Framework of Implementation Guidelines Based on a Systematic Review of the Published Literature (2023) · cites this paper as [18]
The “Stress and anxiety” section says yoga practices may reduce stress responses and help with anxiety, and describes slow, rhythmic pranayama as producing deep relaxation. It does not establish that regulated breathing alone is accessible or risk-free; the “Risks of yoga practice” section explicitly says yoga is not entirely risk-free. Page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.87)
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- Authors
- Sengupta, P.
- Affiliations
- University of Calcutta (IN)
- Corresponding author
- Sengupta, P
- ORCID
- Sengupta, P
- Venue
- Digital Repository at the University of Maryland
- Publisher
- Digital Repository at the University of Maryland
- Published
- 2012
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 444-58
- PMC
- PMC3415184
- OpenAlex
- W2126481991
- Cited by
- 255
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2025: 20 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 25 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 20.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-sa
- Locations
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- University Libraries (University of Maryland) (submittedVersion)
- Digital Repository at the University of Maryland (University of Maryland College Park)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Biofield Effects and Biophysics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Complementary and alternative medicine › Complementary and Alternative Medicine Studies
- Keywords
- yoga, pranayama, health benefits of yoga, stress reduction, anxiety, autonomic nervous system, neurohormonal mechanisms, sympathetic activity, cancer patients, disease prevention, disease management
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