Telles Shirley, Singh Nilkamal, Balkrishna Acharya
Department of Yoga Research, Patanjali Research Foundation, Patanjali Yogpeeth, Haridwar, India.
Int J Yoga. 2012 Jan;5(1):37-41. doi: 10.4103/0973-6131.91710.
Practicing yoga has been shown to improve motor functions and attention. Though attention is required for fine motor and discrimination tasks, the effect of yoga breathing techniques on fine motor skills and visual discrimination has not been assessed.
To study the effect of yoga breathing techniques on finger dexterity and visual discrimination.
The present study consisted of one hundred and forty subjects who had enrolled for stress management. They were randomly divided into two groups, one group practiced high frequency yoga breathing while the other group practiced breath awareness. High frequency yoga breathing (kapalabhati, breath rate 1.0 Hz) and breath awareness are two yoga practices which improve attention. The immediate effect of high frequency yoga breathing and breath awareness (i) were assessed on the performance on the O'Connor finger dexterity task and (ii) (in) a shape and size discrimination task.
There was a significant improvement in the finger dexterity task by 19% after kapalabhati and 9% after breath awareness (P<0.001 in both cases, repeated measures ANOVA and post-hoc analyses). There was a significant reduction (P<0.001) in error (41% after kapalabhati and 21% after breath awareness) as well as time taken to complete the shape and size discrimination test (15% after kapalabhati and 15% after breath awareness; P<0.001) was also observed.
Both kapalabahati and breath awareness can improve fine motor skills and visual discrimination, with a greater magnitude of change after kapalabhati.
实践证明，练习瑜伽可改善运动功能和注意力。尽管精细运动和辨别任务需要注意力，但瑜伽呼吸技巧对精细运动技能和视觉辨别的影响尚未得到评估。
研究瑜伽呼吸技巧对手指灵活性和视觉辨别的影响。
本研究包括140名报名参加压力管理课程的受试者。他们被随机分为两组，一组练习高频瑜伽呼吸，另一组练习呼吸觉知。高频瑜伽呼吸（圣光调息，呼吸频率1.0赫兹）和呼吸觉知是两种能提高注意力的瑜伽练习方式。分别评估高频瑜伽呼吸和呼吸觉知对奥康纳手指灵活性任务表现以及形状和大小辨别任务表现的即时影响。
进行圣光调息后，手指灵活性任务有显著改善，提高了19%；进行呼吸觉知后提高了9%（两种情况P均<0.001，重复测量方差分析和事后分析）。在形状和大小辨别测试中，错误率也有显著降低（圣光调息后降低41%，呼吸觉知后降低21%；P<0.001），同时完成该测试所需时间也有显著减少（圣光调息后减少15%，呼吸觉知后减少15%；P<0.001）。
圣光调息和呼吸觉知均可改善精细运动技能和视觉辨别，圣光调息后的变化幅度更大。
