With correct practice of prāṇāyāma, all diseases are destroyed. With incorrect practice, all diseases arise.

This verse presents the fundamental duality of prāṇāyāma: it is both supreme medicine and potential poison. Everything depends on whether the practice is yukta (appropriate, correct, united) or ayukta (inappropriate, incorrect, disconnected).

Yukta practice implies following the guru’s instructions, respecting gradual progression, observing dietary and behavioral restrictions, and practicing with the correct mental attitude. When these conditions are met, prāṇāyāma has the power to eliminate sarvaroga — all diseases.

Ayukta practice — performed in haste, without proper guidance, or ignoring the body’s signals — produces the opposite effect: sarvarogasamudbhava, the arising of all diseases. Commentators mention respiratory, digestive, nervous, and mental problems among the consequences of incorrect practice.