Does an 8-week hatha yoga program with inversion postures improve blood pressure and heart rate variability in healthy individuals?
An 8-week hatha yoga program increased nocturnal heart rate variability in healthy individuals, suggesting improved autonomic balance, but did not affect blood pressure.
BACKGROUND: Yoga exercises are known to decrease stress and restore autonomic balance. Yet knowledge about the physiological effects of inversion postures is limited. This study aimed to investigate the effects of inversion postures (head below the heart) on blood pressure (BP) and heart rate variability (HRV). METHODS: Twelve healthy women and men took part in an 8-week yoga program (60 min once a week). BP was measured with an automatic Omron mx3 oscillometric monitoring device and HRV with a Holter 24-hour ECG at baseline and 8 weeks after the intervention. RESULTS: There was no significant effect of inversion postures on BP. Nine out of 12 participants showed a significant increase in HRV (p < 0.05) at night (2 hours) on pNN50% (12.7 ± 12.5 to 18.2 ± 13.3). There were no significant changes in other HRV measures such as NN50, LF, HF, LF/HF ratio, LF normalized units (n.u.), HF n.u. and RMSSD. CONCLUSION: Eight weeks of hatha yoga improved HRV significantly which suggests an increased vagal tone and reduced sympathetic activity.
Papp et al. (Mon,) studied this question.