Investigating the Effect of Yoga-based Breathing Styles on the Human Brain, With a Focus on Memory

Investigating the Effect of Yoga-based Breathing Styles on the Human Brain, With a Focus on Memory

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if yoga-based breathing styles could improve memory performance in adult persons without relevant prior experience in yoga, meditation or similar disciplines and without existing health problems which could hinder the implementation of the breathing exercises.

The main questions it aims to answer are:

• Can the memory performance get better ?
• Can the subjective stress level be reduced ?

Participants will complete a memory test while doing a specific nasal and oral breathing.

They will complete a two-week training period after the test with daily nasal or mouth breathing training or no training at all, depending on the group, the are divided into.

Researchers will compare the effect of different breathing styles on memory ability among themselves.

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn about the effect of yoga-based breathing styles on the human brain regarding memory performance in adult persons without relevant prior experience in yoga, meditation or similar disciplines and without existing health problems which could hinder the performance of the breathing exercises.

The main questions it aims to answer are:

• Is there an improve of memory performance through performing the controlled yoga-based breathing styles ?
• Is there a relevant reduction of the subjective stress level through performing the controlled yoga-based breathing styles

Participants will complete a memory test while performing controlled nasal and oral breathing.

They will complete a two-week training period after the test with daily nasal or mouth breathing training or no training at all, depending on the group assignment.

Researchers will compare the nasal breathing group to the mouth breathing and the comparison group to see if the nasal breathing results in a significant improvement of the memory capacity.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Willingness to take on the 2-week exercises but no new athletic or meditative activities
• Yoga-naive and without significant prior experience in various meditative or athletic disciplines that ostensibly involve elements of breath control
• Access to a device with internet access
• Signing of the consent form to participate in the study

Exclusion Criteria:

• Known clinically relevant internal or neurological diseases, especially if associated with chronic pathological oxygenation (e.g. COPD, severe bronchial asthma, sleep apnea, but also CKD).
• History of drug or alcohol abuse
• Known psychiatric illnesses that currently require therapy (e.g., pronounced claustrophobia)
• Medication that could falsify the data collected
• Lack of consent to take note of possible incidental findings
• known epileptic seizures, which could be intensified by the visual insertion of the stimuli