Some interesting new research was published in the past fortnight, in the frontiers in Psychology Journal, with the aim of comparing the psychological effects of meditation and breathing-focused yoga practice in undergraduate students. It was particularly interesting to us as well as it the researchers make repeated references to the work of Dr Patricia Gerbarg and Dr Richard Brown (Who you can train with in their Mind-Body-Breath – Program via Minded Online in February and April 2021)
(Booking Here https://themindedinstitute.com/product/breath-body-mind/).
In this research a 2-weeks yoga intervention was conducted among a group of undergraduate students enrolled in four yoga classes at a University in China. Four classes were randomized to meditation-focused yoga or breathing-focused yoga.
The study notes in its introduction “Yoga has different components including postures, movements, meditation, and breathing (pranayama) (Brown and Gerbarg, 2005). The current literature has seen a general consensus of yoga’s function in retaining energy and vitality (Bowden et al., 2012; Tyagi et al., 2016) and reducing stress (Riley and Park, 2015)….there are evidences for potential differences between meditation and breathing in literature such as the levels of energy (Joshi and Telles, 2009; Zaccaro et al., 2018), attention, and practice difficulty (Brown and Gerbarg, 2009). Thus, the yoga practices of meditation and breathing may function differently in a group of novices with daily mental activities. Our findings may help disclose the nature of yoga components and provide unique guidance for novices with mental work in yoga practices.”
There’s a concise review of the pre-existing research in the study that is worth taking a look at – that lead the researchers here to hypothesize “We that breathing-focused yoga practice would be more effective than meditation-focused yoga to promote work intention (1a), and mindfulness (1b), and to reduce stress perception (1c)”
In their discussion on results they note that “Major findings are: (1) Students in the breathing-focused yoga group reported significant increase in mindfulness and significant decrease in stress, while students in the meditation-focused yoga group reported significant decrease in work intention; (2) Students in the breathing-focused yoga group had significant higher work intentions and mindfulness and had marginally less stress than students in the meditation-focused yoga group at post-intervention.“
The findings are consistent with the work of Gerbarg and Brown – those of you familiar with simple techniques like coherent breathing will recognise this – “Practically, our findings would help novices find a quick and easy way to achieve benefits of yoga, as breathing is easier than meditation (Brown and Gerbarg, 2009). “
“Our findings are consistent with previous literature supporting that breathing directly increase oxygenation to strengthen the physical body (Brown and Gerbarg, 2005) and achieves energy and resources (Joshi and Telles, 2009; Telles et al., 2011; Zaccaro et al., 2018), while meditation achieves serenity and relaxation (Koopmann-Holm et al., 2013; Jones et al., 2018; Philips et al., 2019). When people more easily achieve energy and resources through breathing-focused yoga practice, they would not frequently feel stressed, compared to meditation-focused practice. Moreover, breathing may be more practical and is related to vigor and alertness (Zaccaro et al., 2018), while meditation may be not easily learned and practiced for undergraduates (Brown and Gerbarg, 2009).
Thus, breathing may easily help undergraduates achieve better attention and awareness (i.e., mindfulness), which also leads to lower stress. Although these findings may be due to the relatively easily achieved benefits of yoga breathing and biological energy enhancement by better oxygenation, it may be also due to the difference between awareness of inner body and outer imagination. When people are inexperienced yoga practitioners, practice of mental attention on inner body may be easier to heighten the level of spiritual awareness than through outer imagination. However, all the mentioned benefits of mediation (Hendriks, 2018) may be achieved when people are experienced.
Its worth taking a look at the study – and the resources and other studies referenced are useful – as it concludes “Yoga breathing is an important component and can achieve better benefits than yoga mediation in undergraduate students. Designing a yoga program with combination of breathing and postures facilitates psychological resources and stress coping.”
You can read the full study here
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