As you can see, conscious breathing has three primary effects: (1) it heightens a person's overall consciousness, by prompting him or her to exert conscious control over a normally unconscious act; (2) it increase the amount of prana that enters the body; and (3) it has powerful physiological healing effects.
— Dharma Singh Khalsa, Cameron Stauth, , Meditation as Medicine by Dharma Singh Khalsa, Cameron Stauth