Effects of Swara Yoga-Based Nostril Breathing Techniques on Physiological Arousal Indicators in Adolescents: A Randomized Experimental Design

This study investigated the physiological effects of Swara Yoga-based nostril breathing techniques, Left Nostril Breathing (LNB), Right Nostril Breathing (RNB), and Alternate Nostril Breathing (ANB), on heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), and skin conductance (SC) among 60 adolescents (13.651.79),randomly assigned to four groups (n = 15 each), including a control group (CG).For a 12-week intervention, participants practised their assigned technique daily for 15 minutes.Oneway ANOVA revealed significant differences among groups in HR [F (3,56) = 9.354, p < .001],RR [F (3,56) = 22.953, p=0.001], and SC [F (3,56) =23.100, p=0.002].Post-hoc analysis showed LNB significantly reduced HR compared to RNB (p<0.001) and CG (p=0.024), and lowered RR (p<0.001 vs. RNB; p<0.001 vs. CG) and SC (p<0.001 vs. all).RNB elevated all arousal markers, while ANB showed moderate reductions, notably in RR (p=0.001 vs. CG) and SC (p=0.030 vs. CG).These findings indicate LNB is most effective in reducing physiological arousal, offering potential as a non-pharmacological tool for adolescent stress regulation.