Effects of Bhastrika Pranayama (yoga bellows-type breathing) on pulmonary, cardiovascular, and psychological variables: A systematic review

Pranayama is one of the most essential components of yoga which has been found to be effective to physiology of the mankind in many ways. Among the Pranayamas, Bhastrika Pranayama is one of the popular breathing techniques widely practiced in yoga, which is believed to improve pulmonary, cardiac, and psychological functions. This present systematic review was planned to explore the available scientific studies on Bhastrika Pranayama individually on pulmonary, cardiovascular, and psychological variables. PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar were the basis for our review of the literature. The final review included 19 trials on Bhastrika Pranayama between 2005 and 2021 based on eligibility criteria, including four randomized controlled trials and another 15 clinically controlled trials. The quality assessment of each individual trial was performed using the Jadad Scale and the assessment showed ten trails as high quality studies (score 4–8) and nine trials as low quality studies (score 0–3). The results were discussed based on ten high-quality trials and the findings showed that Bhastrika Pranayama significantly improves pulmonary, cardiovascular, and psychological variables, although there were some limitations related to sample size, study quality, follow-up duration, and practice guidelines. Future studies should address those limitations to reach better conclusions.