Asthma: Does breathing training help?

Training in breathing techniques could help people relax. Whether it can also relieve asthma is still not clear.

Breathing training is a traditional technique for promoting relaxation and better concentration. In many countries breathing training is commonly offered to people with asthma, with the goal of reducing breathing difficulties (dyspnoea). In Germany for example yoga is particularly popular, while the Buteyko method is also widely offered in other places, such as Australia.

It takes time to learn one of these techniques, and they then need to be practised regularly. That raises the question of whether or not any benefit justifies the effort.

In order to answer this question, researchers from the Cochrane Collaboration looked for good enough trials, in which people with asthma tested out the various forms of breathing training. The search did not produce a lot of results. There are a lot of studies of breathing techniques, but only a few concentrate on people with asthma. The available trials include less than 400 people with asthma. That is too few to enable a reliable conclusion to be made.

The trials tested yoga-type techniques predominantly, as well as the Buteyko method. It is possible that the training could help people with mild or moderate asthma. It might be that it helps because it increases relaxation, rather than having a direct impact on the asthma itself.

These questions can only be answered with more and better trials. A comparison of the different techniques is also needed. The issue of what type of breathing might be beneficial is also complicated by the contradictions in advice and techniques.