Can Traditional Breathing Methods Reduce Stress

Purpose: Traditional medicines have unique breathing methods and they are widely believed that they are good for health promotion and good for relax. However, there is little evidence. The purpose of this study is to discuss if such specific breathings could effectively reduce stress and be able to help to reach a relaxed state in the body as well as in the mind. To objectively understand the state of stress/relax, we assessed the condition of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) as well as heart rate (HR) and body temperature (BT), which instantly reflect ANS. Methods: Fourteen healthy male volunteers participated in this study and we investigated four kinds of breathing with them: Natural breathing (Control), Abdominal Pressure breathing (Pressure), Abdominal breathing (Abdominal) and Reverse Abdominal breathing (Reverse). Results: Only Control group showed increase of HF/decrease of HR, showing increase parasympathetic nervous system, which indicates the condition of relax. On the hand, all experimental groups of unique breathings showed increase of sympathetic nervous system, meaning stress. Discussion: Our hypothesis was that traditional breathing methods would decrease stress, however, our results were the total opposite to it. This reason might be found: 1) our subjects might be too young and naive, 2) they did not have enough training or experience, and 3) enough and appropriate duration of breathings was needed. Therefore, we consider that appropriate program and enough training time to use to specific breathing are needed to obtain the effects of traditional breathing.