Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, in collaboration with Sri Sri Institute of Advanced Research and Fortis Escort Heart Institute, report that rhythmic breathing in Sudarshan Kriya Yoga (SKY) produces measurable shifts in brain rhythms associated with deep relaxation. The team finds that SKY practice increases theta and delta brain activity while reducing alpha power.
Rising rates of stress, anxiety, and depression combined with limited access to professional care have created a desire for low-cost, self-managed approaches to mental health.
Previous investigations into yoga, meditation, and breathing exercises have documented improvements in mood, fatigue, emotional processing, and executive brain functions. Meditation practices have been linked to structural and functional changes in neural networks governing attention, self-referential processing, and emotion regulation.
Breathing, in particular, has been shown to influence the balance of sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, shifting the body toward relaxation.
In the study, “Unlocking deep relaxation: the power of rhythmic breathing on brain rhythms,” published in npj Mental Health Research, researchers designed EEG experiments to examine how brain oscillations change during different phases of the SKY technique.
A total of 43 experienced SKY practitioners participated, all recruited from the Art of Living Foundation’s Bengaluru center. Subjects, averaging around 25 years of age, had between one and 18 years of practice. A control group of 10 individuals listened to relaxing music instead of performing SKY.
EEG signals were recorded across multiple brain regions before, during, and after the practice using a 24-channel system. Researchers divided the session into five phases: pre-resting, pranayama, kriya, yoga-nidra, and post-resting.
Results showed distinct neural signatures with alpha power decreased significantly during yoga-nidra and post-resting phases, especially in parietal and occipital regions. Theta amplitude increased during kriya and remained elevated through yoga-nidra, while delta amplitude rose sharply during yoga-nidra, reflecting a deep relaxation state.
The control group showed no comparable changes, hinting that the effects were rhythmic breathing related.
Investigators conclude that SKY puts the brain into a state marked by strong theta-delta rhythms and reducing alpha activity, correlating with deep relaxation described in yogic traditions as samadhi.
Given the global demand for scalable mental health tools, the authors note that SKY could offer a practical, non-pharmacological method to support well-being and potentially serve as the basis for neurofeedback applications targeting anxiety and stress.
As the SKY group did not listen to the music and the description of “relaxing music” in the control group lacks clear definition (such as tempo, rhythm, pitch of the acoustic content), there is a potential confounding of testing conditions.
A third silent calibration control group would be needed to understand if the music generated any effect of its own. Additionally, an untrained deep breathing exercise as a control would have elicited a more direct comparative to the specific trained rhythmic method used.
Entire F7 (left inferior frontal) and O2 (right occipital) channels were removed from EEG analysis due to noise observed in 31 subjects. It is unclear how this data loss might alter the results as each electrode records a spatially blurred sum typically requiring contextual meaning from neighboring electrodes.
While the study declares no competing interests, the Sri Sri Institute of Advanced Research is the dedicated research division of the Art of Living Foundation whose founder created the SKY method. There are obvious conflicts of interest involved and the standards for reporting them should not have been relaxed.
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More information:
Vaibhav Tripathi et al, Unlocking deep relaxation: the power of rhythmic breathing on brain rhythms, npj Mental Health Research (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44184-025-00156-4
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