A Framework of Measurable Features of Bhramari Pranayama Leading to Meditation

B P Ushamohan; Yamini Keshavaprasad Belur; Aravind Kumar Rajasekaran; Judu Ilavarasu; T M Srinivasan

doi:10.17485/IJST/v16i4.752

Article

A Framework of Measurable Features of Bhramari Pranayama Leading to Meditation

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Indian Journal of Science and Technology

DOI: 10.17485/IJST/v16i4.752

Year: 2023, Volume: 16, Issue: 4, Pages: 259-265

Original Article

A Framework of Measurable Features of Bhramari Pranayama Leading to Meditation

B P Ushamohan¹, Yamini Keshavaprasad Belur^2*, Aravind Kumar Rajasekaran², Judu Ilavarasu¹, T M Srinivasan¹

¹Division of Yoga and Physical Sciences, Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana (SVYASA), Bengaluru, India
²Department of Speech Pathology & Audiology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, 560029, Bangalore, India

*Corresponding Author
Email: [email protected]

Received Date:04 April 2022, Accepted Date:06 June 2022, Published Date:27 January 2023

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Background: Bhramari pranayama, a yogic technique comprises a selfvocalized humming sound emulating a female bumblebee. Attention to this sound leads to a meditative state. The component of its stimuli, the sustained self-evoked humming sound with breath control, is overt unlike the stimuli of most of the meditations. These observable and measurable components of Bhramari pranayama offer a rare opportunity to study the causal component of meditation in research. Objectives: Considering the growing interest in this area, Bhramari’s potential as a unique research tool, and a framework of the mechanism of it leading to meditation is attempted. Methods: We review relevant current scientific literature and classical yoga texts to understand the framework of how the overt features of Bhramari pranayama cause the meditative state. We present our argument in three sections, where we present the Bhramari pranayama practice into its sub-components, namely i) pranayama, ii) Bhramari sound-producing phase, and iii) Shanmukhi practice. Findings: This has facilitated the identification of the measurable attributes of Bhramari like fundamental frequency, resonant vibrations, articulation, etc. Concepts related to its processing like efference copy, corollary discharge, and sense of agency, are also observable in electrophysiological investigations. This information would be useful to harness the therapeutic benefits of Bhramari pranayama due to its ability to produce self-evoked resonant vibrations, sensory entrainment, and gamma waves, that have specific clinical significance. Novelty: This framework elucidates the mechanism of how the overt, observable, and measurable features of Bhramari Pranayama cause meditation. It presents the relation between breath and self-vocalized acoustics, that produce synchrony among multisensory systems to facilitate meditation.

Keywords: Bhramari Pranayama; Meditation; Self-evoked sound; Resonance; Sensory entrainment

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© 2023 Ushamohan et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Published By Indian Society for Education and Environment (iSee)