Metabolic rate

Increase Metabolism with Yogic Breathing Practices

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Increase Metabolism with Yogic Breathing Practices

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“different yoga postures and breathing practices, which involve the control of respiratory rate and retention periods, may produce markedly different metabolic effects.” – Anupama Tyagi

 

Breathing is essential for life and generally occurs automatically. It’s easy to take for granted as it’s been there our entire lives. Nevertheless, we become more aware of it when it varies with circumstances, such as when we exercise and also in emotional states, especially fear and anxiety. But we rarely notice it during everyday ongoing life. Yet, its characteristics are associated with our state of well-being. Slow deep breathing is characteristic of a healthy relaxed state. Breathing exercises are common in yoga and meditation practices and have been found to have a number of beneficial effects. Classically, some yogic breathing techniques have been characterized as cooling. But this assertion has not been investigated with controlled scientific research.

 

In today’s Research News article “Body Temperature and Energy Expenditure During and After Yoga Breathing Practices Traditionally Described as Cooling.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6977599/ ) Telles and colleagues recruited healthy participants, aged 19-25 years, who were experienced with yogic breathing. They had 4 28-minute sessions of 18 minutes of yogic breathing techniques that required mouth breathing with the protrusion of the tongue of sheetali pranayama or sitkari pranayama, or breath awareness, or quietly lying down. The sessions occurred on individual days in randomized orders. During each session they were measured for body temperature and oxygen consumption.

 

They found that during both of the yogic breathing sessions there were significant increases in body temperature, oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide eliminated, estimated energy expenditure, and non-protein respiratory quotient. On the other hand, during quiet lying down there were significant decreases in oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide eliminated, estimated energy expenditure.

 

Hence, the yogic breathing was not “cooling” but activating. Indeed, these results suggest that the yogic breathing techniques produce a mild hypermetabolic state that is similar to that found with mild exercise. It can be speculated that it is the activation produced by these techniques that is responsible for some of the benefits of yogic breathing techniques. Future research is needed to test this hypothesis.

 

So, increase metabolism with yogic breathing practices.

 

“We breathe constantly, it’s what we do. We cannot make ourselves stop breathing, except to only hold our breath for a few minutes, thankfully. However, what we can control is how we breathe. This control of how oxygen enters and exits the body has been linked to the improvement of bodily function and our nervous system, which includes stimulating our metabolism.” – Heather Lancaster

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Telles, S., Gandharva, K., Sharma, S. K., Gupta, R. K., & Balkrishna, A. (2020). Body Temperature and Energy Expenditure During and After Yoga Breathing Practices Traditionally Described as Cooling. Medical science monitor basic research, 26, e920107. https://doi.org/10.12659/MSMBR.920107

 

Abstract

Background

In traditional yoga texts, sheetali and sitkari pranayamas are described as cooling. The present study was aimed at recording the surface body temperature, oxygen consumed, and carbon dioxide eliminated before, during, and after performance of sheetali and sitkari pranayamas.

Material/Methods

Seventeen healthy male volunteers with ages between 19 to 25 years (average age 20.7±1.8 years) were assessed in 4 sessions, viz. sheetali pranayama, sitkari pranayama, breath awareness and quiet lying, on 4 separate days, in random sequence. The axillary surface body temperature (TRUSCOPE II, Schiller, China) and metabolic variables (Quark CPET, COSMED, Italy) were recorded in 3 periods: before (5 minutes), during (18 minutes), and after (5 minutes), in each of the 4 sessions. The heat index was calculated in the before and after periods, based on recordings of ambient temperature and humidity. Data were analyzed using SPSS (Version 24.0).

Results

Body temperature increased significantly during sheetali and sitkari (p<0.05, p<0.01; respectively) while it decreased after breath awareness and quiet lying down (p<0.01, p<0.001; respectively) when compared with respective post-exercise states. Oxygen consumption increased by 9.0% during sheetali (p<0.05) and by 7.6% during sitkari (p<0.01) while it decreased significantly during (p<0.05) and after (p<0.01) quiet lying down compared to respective pre-exercise states.

Conclusions

The results do not support the description of these yoga breathing practices as cooling. These yoga breathing practices may be used to induce a mild hypermetabolic state.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6977599/

 

Increase Resting Metabolic Rate in Obese Women with Yoga

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Increase Resting Metabolic Rate in Obese Women with Yoga

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“You get to thinking that yoga and its health benefits, such as stress reduction and improved fitness, are best for thin people, and not so much for the 36 percent of U.S. adults who are obese. Not true. Yoga is for all types of shapes and sizes.” – Laura McMullen

 

Obesity has become an epidemic in the industrialized world. In the U.S. the incidence of obesity, defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or above has more than doubled over the last 35 years to currently around 35% of the population, while two thirds of the population are considered overweight or obese (BMI > 25). Obesity has been found to shorten life expectancy by eight years and extreme obesity by 14 years. This occurs because obesity is associated with cardiovascular problems such as coronary heart disease and hypertension, stroke, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, and others.

 

Obviously, there is a need for effective treatments to obese individuals. But, despite copious research and a myriad of dietary and exercise programs, there still is no safe and effective treatment. Mindfulness is known to be associated with lower risk for obesity, alter eating behavior and improve health in obesity. This suggests that mindfulness training may be an effective treatment for overeating and obesity alone or in combination with other therapies. Yoga may be particularly beneficial for the obese as it is both a mindfulness practice and an exercise. Yoga practice has been shown to have a myriad of physical and psychological benefits. These include significant loss of body weight and improvement in health in the obese.

 

In today’s Research News article “Comparing between the effect of energy-restricted diet and yoga on the resting metabolic rate, anthropometric indices, and serum adipokine levels in overweight and obese staff women.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7306236/) Yazdanparast and colleagues recruited healthy adulty overweight and obese women and randomly assigned them to receive 8 weeks of either a balanced restricted diet with a reduction in about 500 Kcal per day or to 5 days per week in class and home weekend practice of 1 hour Hatha yoga practice (estimated to expend 200 Kcal per day) in combination with a balanced restricted diet with a reduction in about 300 Kcal per day. They were measured before and after the 8-week practice period for resting metabolic rate, body size, blood lipids, blood glucose, leptin, and blood adiponectin.

 

They found that after the 8-week intervention both groups had significant reductions in body size and blood leptin levels but the yoga plus diet group also had significant increases in the resting metabolic rate and blood adiponectin levels while the diet alone group did not. On the other hand, the diet only group had a significant reduction in blood high density lipoprotein – cholesterol that did not occur in the yoga plus diet group.

 

These results are particularly interesting because the two groups were estimated to have the same deficit in caloric intake plus expenditure with the diet only group having a 500 Kcal per day reduction in intake while the yoga plus diet group had a 300 Kcal per day reduction in intake along with a 200 KCAL per day increase in expenditure. Hence the differences in the results for the two groups were not due to differences in total energy reduction.

 

This suggests that yoga practice has the extra benefit over diet alone of increasing the resting metabolic rate and blood adiponectin levels. Adiponectin is an anti-inflammatory protein that is secreted by fat cells but is decreased with obesity. The reduction in the yoga group suggests that the yoga practice may produce a reduction in inflammation in the women. Indeed, such a reduction in the inflammatory response produced by yoga practice has been documented previously. A reduction in inflammation is greatly beneficial to the overall health of the women.

 

The reduction in the resting metabolic rate represents the baseline caloric expenditure independent of activity. Hence, its reduction in the yoga group suggests that yoga practice increases energy expenditure all day long regardless of activity, increasing overall expenditure. This should, over time, produce an increased weight reduction. Indeed, the current study and  previous research has found the yoga practice reduces body size.

 

So, Increase Resting Metabolic Rate in Obese Women with Yoga.

 

“The benefits of practice are endless. As a light form of aerobic exercise, yoga can help to alleviate common symptoms of being affected by obesity.” – Laurel Dierking

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Yazdanparast, F., Jafarirad, S., Borazjani, F., Haghighizadeh, M. H., & Jahanshahi, A. (2020). Comparing between the effect of energy-restricted diet and yoga on the resting metabolic rate, anthropometric indices, and serum adipokine levels in overweight and obese staff women. Journal of research in medical sciences : the official journal of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, 25, 37. https://doi.org/10.4103/jrms.JRMS_787_19

 

Abstract

Background:

Weight management is an important strategy to prevent the consequences of obesity. The aim of the study was to compare the effect of yoga practice and energy-restricted diet on resting metabolic rate (RMR), anthropometric indices, and serum adiponectin and leptin in overweight and obese women.

Materials and Methods:

Obese or overweight women were divided into two groups: yoga practicing and energy-restricted diet. Exercise trials consisted of 60-min Hatha yoga equal to 200 kilocalories (kcal) combined with 300 kcal restriction per day, and an energy-restricted diet consisted of 500 kcal restriction per day. The intervention period for both the groups was 8 weeks. RMR, anthropometric indices, and serum adiponectin, leptin, and lipid profiles were measured at baseline and at the end of the study.

Results:

RMR was increased in yoga but not in the diet group (P = 0.001). The level of adiponectin was increased in the yoga group compared with the diet (P = 0.035). The concentration of high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol was decreased in the diet group significantly but not in yoga (P = 0.006). The level of leptin was decreased in both the groups (P = 0.001), and there were no significant differences between the two groups.

Conclusion:

The findings of the study demonstrated the effect of yoga practicing on RMR, and serum adiponectin, in overweight and obese women. It seems yoga practice with less energy restriction compared with a common energy restriction diet and is more effective in weight management for those who are in weight loss programs.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7306236/