Systematic review and effect of conscious breathing on adult attention and learning task

Conscious breathing exercises may improve cognitive tasks in adults by inducing cellular and neuronal changes. While cognitive abilities have been thought to decline with age, the concept of andragogic learning suggests that attention does not decrease but rather changes. A review of published literature indicates that conscious breathing can enhance certain cognitive capacities, potentially offsetting age-related cognitive changes. The evidence points to real improvements in cognitive performance through such practices.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In recent years, the control of physiological processes has been strengthened, which show metabolic changes that can generate effects at a neuronal level. Our objective is to review what has been described as conscious breathing theory and how this can affect cognitive tasks, which have been described as very affected in adults and which reduce with age. However, we have begun to understand a new phenomenon of andragogic learning, which indicates that the task of learning must be understood differently, and that attention is something that must be understood as something that does not decrease with age but changes. It also seems that conscious breathing tasks can improve this type of task and that it can be beneficial. What has been published suggests that breathing, or at least conscious breathing exercise, improves certain cellular and neuronal capacities and that this can lead to real changes in cognitive tasks in adults.