Many arrogant medical practitioners deem Yoga and Pranayama as mere placebo. They consider them as mere exercise!
Your breathing is your life! Not just your physical well-being but also your mental well-being! It is प्राण-enabling process! प्राण is the ultimate intelligence in the universe.
Most of us hardly know how to breathe. We breathe so half-heartily that cumulative impact is always surprised sickness for many.
Learn to breathe. Pranayam is long way to go. First, just learn to breathe! Do it properly! Focused. Conscious.
Research
Rhythm of breathing affects memory and fear
This discovery led scientists to ask whether cognitive functions typically associated with these brain areas — in particular fear processing and memory — could also be affected by breathing.
The amygdala is strongly linked to emotional processing, in particular fear-related emotions. So scientists asked about 60 subjects to make rapid decisions on emotional expressions in the lab environment while recording their breathing. Presented with pictures of faces showing expressions of either fear or surprise, the subjects had to indicate, as quickly as they could, which emotion each face was expressing.
When faces were encountered during inhalation, subjects recognized them as fearful more quickly than when faces were encountered during exhalation. This was not true for faces expressing surprise. These effects diminished when subjects performed the same task while breathing through their mouths. Thus the effect was specific to fearful stimuli during nasal breathing only.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2016/12/rhythm-of-breathing-affects-memory-and-fear/
https://ki.se/en/news/breathing-through-the-nose-aids-memory-storage
