EFFECTIVENESS OF YOGA AS MIND-BODY EXERCISE OVER MEMORY, PERCEIVED STRESS AND MENTAL HEALTH

Vishnu D Udhan 1 , Dr. Sharadchandra G Wankhede 2 and Dr. Pramod Shinde 3 . 1. PhD Scholar, Department of physiology, MGM Medical College, Aurangabad. Maharashtra India. 2. Professor Department of physiology, MGM Medical College, Aurangabad. Maharashtra India. 3. Professor Department of physiology, MGM Medical College, Aurangabad. Maharashtra India. ...................................................................................................................... Manuscript Info Abstract ......................... ........................................................................ Manuscript History


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As there are multiple determinants for mental health, in this study psychological determinants were aimed to examine. The aim of this study was to see the effectiveness of regular yogic exercise for 6 months continuously over mental health, perceived stress and memory status in normal healthy individuals aged between 30 to 50 years of both genders. Mental stress, depression, anxiety, obesity are some of the major concerns of the modern world population. By 2020, the WHO predicts that depression will be the second largest contributor to global disease burden after ischemic heart disease. It also evidenced the ever growing prevalence of anxiety, psychological distress, etc. 2,3 Loss of cognitive function especially memory disorders or dementia is a syndrome of a chronic or progressive nature, caused by variety of brain illness that affect memory, thinking, behavior and ability to perform everyday activities. 1 Stress is any uncomfortable "emotional experience accompanied by predictable biochemical, physiological and behavioral changes". 4 In today's world psychological stress is the most common issue amongst all age group. Stress affects everyone. But interestingly not all stress is bad. At times, it can be beneficial that can either motivate to prepare and perform well as well as produce boost that provide the drive and energy to help people to do well under given circumstances. There are various physiological and psychological responses to stress within the body. Different people can coup up with different level of stress. However, long term stress can be harmful to physical and psychological health which leads to mental disorder eventually. 5,6 Although Yoga is an ancient Indian mind-body exercise technique practiced globally in masses as most preferred alternative or complimentary approach to clinical psychological interventions. 7

Materials and Methods:-
The present study was approved by Ethics Committee for Research on Human Subjects and conducted at Dept of Physiology, MGM Medical College Aurangabad. By simple random sampling method 200 (120 (60%) were male and 80 (40%) were female) healthy subjects aged 30 to 50 years were selected as per inclusion & exclusion criteria.
Inclusion Criteria:-Male and female healthy subjects never practiced yoga before and willing to practice yoga for 6 month continuously on 1 hour per day X 6 days' per week basis.
Exclusion Criteria:-Healthy individual already practicing yoga or any exercise. Pregnant women and individual diagnosed with any systemic disease or psychiatric disease. Post selection, all the 200 study subjects were explained with study design, yoga and experimental procedures and written consent was obtained for participation in study. Yoga was practiced at Yoga Centre under the guidance of qualified Yoga Teacher. Pre-yogic and post-yogic Mental Health Index (MHI) Score; Memory Score and Perceived Stress Score (PSS), were estimated by using questionnaire based Mental Health Inventory (MHI-38) 8 , PGI-Memory Scale (PGIMS) 9 and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) 10  Results:- Mental Health Index (MHI) indicates the overall mental health of an individual. It is observed that, Post-yogic MHI score was significantly greater than Pre-yogic MHI score with 29.45 Mean Difference or 20% higher (Table 2). It only suggests the usefulness of the Yoga as a mind-body exercise for the betterment of mental well-being. Further, there is highly significant increase in Post-yogic exercise Memory Score when compared it with Pre-yogic exercise Memory Score. The Mean Difference 7.94 or 10% increase was noted ( Table 2). Perceived Stress Score (PSS Score) was decreased after practicing Yoga for 6 months. Post-yogic PSS Score (13.55±4.43) was highly significantly lesser than the Pre-yogic PSS Score (18.63±7.02) by 5.08 or 27.27% (Table 2). Pre and post-yogic results noticeably shows the positive effectiveness of yoga practice on mental health, memory and perceived stress. Therefore, results have encouraged us to see the strong relationship between Yoga practice and mental well-being. Moreover in support, we found that our results are quite consistent with the results of some of the previous studies of this kind.
Javnbakht (2009) and Narasimhan (2011) in their studies reported regular yoga practice (at least once weekly) helps to decrease levels of depression and anxiety significantly. Twice weekly yoga practice for two months showed a significant decrease in levels of depression as well as levels of both state and trait anxiety. For individuals who practiced yoga twice weekly for a period of two months, levels of state anxiety and trait anxiety decreased. 11,12 Heriza in his one of the study he found that the physical and mental health through yoga and getting control over the cognitive functions especially attention, memory and arousal is achievable 13 . Specific inverted Yogasanas increases the blood flow to the brain as a result memory related parameters such as attention, recall concentration are improved in yoga practitioners. 14 150 Training body to respond to the request for relaxation on a muscular level and breathing deeply create a habit of relaxing that can be very helpful in turning off the stress response. 16 Issue of Consumer Reports suggests Yoga for stress relief. 14 Practicing Yoga will "provide effective relief of anxiety and stress". 15 Cowen & colleagues studied the effects of Yoga intervention among firefighters that had significantly decreased Perceived Stress Score after 4 yoga classes over 6 weeks. 17 Further, similar results obtained by Hamid Dehghanfar et.al. and Eric Lindahl et.al. that there was significant decrease in stress score by Yoga intervention. 18,19 The strong point of this study was substantially larger sample size. However, the limitation of the study was, the effect of Yoga had not compared among the male and female subjects on these parameters.

Conclusion:-
In and through this study we have concluded that, Yoga can be the best available complimentary approach to pharmacological intervention for mental well-being, within its own limits. Yoga can certainly bring utmost harmony within physical and mental health, if practiced regularly.