BACKGROUND: Psychosocial well-being is increasingly recognized as a crucial aspect of overall health, with stress, anxiety, and emotional dysregulation affecting individuals across various demographics. Meditation has been widely studied for its potential to enhance mental well-being. This study developed and validated the Nadamay meditation technique, a structured practice based on ancient...
Yogic meditation, involving focused awareness, is gaining scientific attention for its impact on brain function and neurochemical balance. It enhances autonomic control and influences neurotransmitters related to emotional and cognitive health. This narrative review explored scientific studies on the effects of yogic meditation on EEG patterns and neurotransmitter levels. 21 peer-reviewed...
Background: Meditation, encompassing focussed attention (FA) and open monitoring (OM) approaches, is recognised for its potential to enhance cognitive functions. Sustained attention, a critical component of attentional processes, influences cognitive capacity and is linked to meditation benefits. However, a robust and extensive review analysis needs to address the specific relationship between...
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is one of the leading causes of disability affecting more than 340 million people and second largest contributor to global burden of disease. Chronic stress is a common risk factor and important contributor for MDD. Stress could be defined as the "perceived inability to cope". Stressful life events are shown to provoke a sequence of psychological and...
This meta-analysis planned to assess the impact of yoga and mindfulness practice in reducing stress and anxiety to improve athletes' sports performance. Several databases were electronically searched for eligible articles till September 2022. Participants aged 18-45 yrs, male and female, and recreational athletes from different sports were included. Athletes' stress, competitive anxiety, and...
In Indian context, infertility is often a silent struggle. Despite the high prevalence of infertility in the country, the majority of couples do not share their struggles with family or friends due to social stigma, thus increasing their psychological vulnerability. Heartfulness meditation has shown to decrease stress, anxiety, loneliness and improve sleep along with quality of life. The...
The discussions on conceptualization, operationalization, measures, and means of well-being (WB) and personal excellence (PE) are dynamic and debatable. Therefore, this study aims to coin a perspective of PE based on the Patanjali Yoga Sūtra (PYS). For this, professional, psychological, philosophical, and yogic perspectives of WB and PE are analyzed to derive a viable yogic framework for PE....
There is a worldwide interest in yoga for wellness, mind-body medicine, research in consciousness, prevention/management of life-style disorders and spiritual quest for self-realization. An important question is "Is yoga a therapy or a lifestyle?" However, the universe of yoga has many sets and subsets, evolved over millennia, by great yogis and acharyas. The proliferation of the names of yoga,...
Yoga and meditation-based interventions have been extensively utilized in the field of contemporary complementary and alternative medicine for various physical and mental health conditions. Ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has rekindled the interest of researchers in yoga and meditation for its preventive and therapeutic utilities. However, the available literature in this area has several...
Yoga and Ayurveda are ancient sciences which emphasize on the cure of disease and the proportion of health. Both sciences are also known to reduce the aging process and are helpful in aging-related disorders. This study investigates the effects of Yoga and Ayurveda Rasayana combined intervention on cognition among the elderly with mild cognitive impairment. Seventy-two elderly persons (average...
Pranayama or breath regulation is considered as an essential component of Yoga, which is said to influence the physiological systems. We present a comprehensive overview of scientific literature in the field of yogic breathing. We searched PubMed, PubMed Central and IndMed for citations for keywords "Pranayama" and "Yogic Breathing". The search yielded a total of 1400 references. Experimental...
Attention is an important part of the process of meditation. Traditional Yoga texts describe two stages of meditation which follow each other in sequence. These are meditative focusing (dharana in Sanskrit) and effortless meditation (dhyana in Sanskrit). This review evaluated eight experimental studies conducted on participants in normal health, who practiced dharana and dhyana. The studies...
Background: Meditation techniques are known to elicit relaxation response in which moving meditation which combines the practice of yoga postures and guided relaxation is known as Cyclic Meditation reported helpful in reducing the sympathetic arousal and improving health of practitioners. Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of Cyclic Meditation on stress and...