A recent review of the existing literature and research associated with the health benefits of pranayama was published by Sharma, Deepak & Dogra, Deepak (2024) (A Comprehensive Review On The Therapeutic Impact Of Pranayama Practices On Physical And Mental Health. Journal of Advanced Zoology. 45. 01-05).
The results of their review indicate that pranayama has immediate physiological health benefits including immediately reducing blood pressure and heart rate, enhancing vital capacity, and decreasing basal rate and systolic blood pressure.
They also found that pranayama has long-term physical benefits that include significant improvements in muscular endurance, flexibility, and respiratory rate, and improvements on cardiovascular and cardiac autonomic functions, as well as significantly reducing systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
Cognitive functions and mental well-being also benefit, brain function improves, and perceived stress levels decrease. Finally, they found that overall health and disease prevention improves.