Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
This 2020 review looked at English studies on yogic breathing (pranayamas) published from 2008 to 2018. The authors screened 1,588 articles and analyzed 14 that met their criteria. Those 14 papers generally reported effects of pranayama on emotional states and on thinking or cognitive performance. The review also said the…
This randomized trial tested whether a single short bout of walking, meditation, or a combination changed short-term anxiety in young adults. One hundred ten university students (mean age 21.4 years) were randomly assigned to 10 minutes of walking, 10 minutes of meditation, walking then meditation, meditation then walking, or sitting.…
This small cross-sectional study compared 33 regular yoga practitioners with 35 non‑practitioners aged 17–30. The yoga group had a lower resting heart rate (about 69 vs 81 bpm) and a smaller blood‑pressure response on the sustained handgrip test (about 10.2 vs 16.3), differences the authors report as statistically significant. Other…
The authors made and checked two short scales (MERS and MDRS) to measure helpful or unhelpful reactions during mindfulness exercises. They used three small studies with university students (21, 192, and 19 people). In a small experiment, people with a hyperactive/impulsive tendency said slumped sitting felt harder and lying on…
This study tested a single 14‑minute body scan on 355 undergraduate and graduate students. Participants filled in questionnaires before and after the exercise to measure current anxiety and pain and to classify people as having low or high everyday symptoms. The results showed the body scan reduced anxiety and pain…
