Regular Yoga practice increases the vital capacity, timed vital capacity, maximum voluntary ventilation, breath holding time and maximal inspiratory and expiratory pressures
Pulmonary functions are generally determined by the strength of respiratory muscles, compliance of the thoracic cavity, airway resistance and elastic recoil of the lungs.PFT provide qualitative and quantitative assessment of pulmonary function in patients with obstructive and restrictive lung diseases. The tests used to describe pulmonary function are the lung volumes and lung capacities. Regular practice of yoga is known to improve overall performance and working capacity.Current evidence suggests that following regular practice of yoga there is an improvement in cardiovascular and pulmonary functions.
- Increased power of respiratory muscles that is due to the work hypertrophy of the muscles during yoga and other exercises.
- Yogic breathing exercises train practitioners to use the diaphragmatic and abdominal muscles more efficiently thereby emptying and filling the respiratory apparatus more efficiently and completely.
This study agrees with previous reports and supports the health benefits of yoga. The study revealed that the sedentary subject’s performance on PFT was poorer when compared with yoga practitioners. This emphasizes the need to change their life-style and adopt measures like yoga regularly to be healthy. Regular practice of yoga produces a positive effect on the lung that is reflected in improvement of pulmonary capacities. The present study suggests that short-term yoga exercise improves respiratory breathing capacity by increasing chest wall expansion and forced expiratory lung volumes. The data from the study provide more scientific evidence to support the beneficial effect of yoga practice on respiration and muscle strength. This resultant effect of yoga on lung functions can be used as lung strengthening tool to treat many lung diseases such as asthma, allergic bronchitis, post-pneumonia recoveries, tuberculosis and many occupational diseases. The knowledge so gained of the respiratory functions through spirometry can be utilized for promoting yoga among the sedentary adults and the betterment of the population.
