By Charnicia E. Huggins
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The rhythmic chanting used when saying the rosary
prayer or performing a yoga mantra seems to have a calming effect on the heart,
study findings suggest.
``The rosary might be viewed as a health practice as well as a religious practice,''
according to study lead author Dr. Luciano Bernardi, of the University of Pavia
in Italy and his colleagues.
To investigate, the researchers measured the breathing rates of 23 adults while
they either prayed the rosary in the original Latin or recited a yoga mantra.
The rosary is a repetition 50 times of the Ave Maria, or the Hail Mary prayer,
with the whole 50 repeated three times. For comparison, the researchers also
measured the study participants' respiration during free talking, and during
spontaneous and controlled slow breathing exercises.
When the participants breathed spontaneously, their respiratory rate was about
14 breaths per minute, which slowed down to almost 8 breaths per minute when
they engaged in regular conversation, the investigators report in the December
22/29th issue of the British Medical Journal. During recitation of the Ave Maria
or the yoga mantra, however, their respiratory rate was about 6 breaths per
minute.
A slow respiration rate of 6 breaths per minute ``has generally favourable effects
on cardiovascular and respiratory function,'' the researchers note.
Furthermore, breathing rate was irregularly reduced during free talking, but
was significantly more regular during recitation of the Ave Maria and the yoga
mantra, similar to during the 6 minutes of controlled respiration, Bernardi's
team reports. This indicates ``that these methods could stabilize the respiratory
rate as effectively as precisely timed control,'' the authors write.
What's more, recitation of both the Ave Maria and the yoga mantra similarly
synchronized all the heart rhythms, the investigators found.
The similar effects produced by the two seemingly different cultural practices
may not be merely coincidental. In fact, Bernardi and colleagues suggest, the
two practices may have similar origins.
It is known that the rosary is related to the Christian religion, but it was
actually introduced by the crusaders ``who learnt a similar technique from the
Arabs who in turn learned it from the Indian and Tibetan masters of yoga,''
Bernardi told Reuters Health.
``So it may be that recitation of Mantras, which originally was conceived as
a health practice, and the Rosary, which is essentially a religious practice
in Europe, could have the same background,'' he explained.
"Classically, in the West, the rosary is the technique that is most readily
recognized as a way of evoking this response," said Dr. Herbert Benson,
president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute.
SOURCE: British Medical Journal 2001;323:1446-1449.