title: Immediate effects of right and left nostril breathing on verbal and spatial scores.
abstract: The immediate effect of two yoga breathing techniques was assessed on verbal and spatial memory tasks, considered hemisphere-specific. Forty-five participants (24 males; age range 20 to 45 years (mean age 27.1 +/- 8.1 years) were randomly allocated to three groups (n = 15 each) and were assessed immediately before and after 45 minutes of three breathing practices i.e., right nostril yoga breathing, left nostril yoga breathing, or breath awareness as a control intervention. Spatial memory scores increased after left nostril yoga breathing compared to before (by 16 percent, P = 0.03, paired t-test). Hence, breathing through the left nostril increased performance in a spatial cognitive task, corresponding to the cerebral hemisphere contralateral to the patent nostril.
authors.affiliation: Swami Vivekananda Yoga Research Foundation, Bangalore 560 019.
authors.forename: Meesha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Joshi
authors.forename: Shirley
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Telles
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001945:Breathing Exercises; D054022:Cerebrum / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D009666:Nose / Q000502:physiology*; D011897:Random Allocation; D012119:Respiration; D015013:Yoga; D055815:Young Adult