IMMEDIATE EFFECT OF DEEP BREATHING EXERCISE ON HEALTHY SUBJECTS

Abstract

Background: A behavioral task frequently used to assess distress tolerance is the breath holding task. The immediate effects of deep breathing exercises have different types of benefits like significant decrease of atelec-tatic area, increase in aerated lung area and a small increase in PaO 2 is well known. There exists an interrelationship in normal healthy persons between resting HR, RR & BP and breath bolding capacity. By adding the DBE in routine physiotherapy; we can improve the distress tolerance as well as lung capacity in healthy individuals. Materials and Methods: 60 healthy subjects with the age of 20-25 years at Physiotherapy College, Ahmadabad was included for the study. Subjects on medication or not wililng to participate were excluded. Experimental study (pre and post) was conducted with purposive sampling. Height, weight, BMI, PR, RR, SpO 2 , PEFR & breath holding time was recorded. Then subjects were instructed to perform DBE for 5 minutes (6 breaths/min). This was followed by recording of PR, RR, SpO 2 , PEFR and lastly breath holding time. Data was analyzed by using SPSS 16 by keeping the level of significance at 5%. Wilcoxon test was used to see the statistical significance. Results: PEFR, SpO 2 and breath holding time is found to be significantly increased (p=0.00) with significant decrease in PR, RR (p=0.00) in young adults of both genders. Conclusion: The result indicates that the deep breathing exercise has an influence on parasympathetic nervous system. The increased PEFR can be due to decreased in small airway resistance.