Heart-based meditation practice helps in reducing stress: Study

Heartfulness meditation a simple heartbased meditation practice aimed at attaining a balanced state of mind helps in reducing stress and improving the quality of sleep revealed a studyThe mixedmethod study was conducted by US researchers during the Covid19 pandemic and was published recently in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health said Heartfulness Institute which has its global headquarters in HyderabadHeartfulness meditation was associated with significant reduction in perceived stress and improvement in the quality of sleep of participants who completed the onlinebased meditation programmeKamlesh Patel also known as Daaji the guide of Heartfulness meditation underlines the need to immediately address stress in ones lifeThe simple focus of life is to become better and better each day To achieve this we need to be in a state of complete awareness about our self and raise our consciousness in tune with our true nature Stress is the modern day ill created by our inability to focus on things that matter Stress and its negative impact on our overall wellbeing has slowly but steadily taken control of every individual he saidWhile we know Covid19 as the pandemic the buildup of stress and its ill impacts is the bigger pandemic and equally a bigger health crisis Stress needs our urgent attention as well and in consistent practice of meditation we have the most effective vaccination to ward off stress and is the visa for living your life in joy he addedThe study was conducted by Dr Kunal Desai Dr Priti Parikh and Dr Alpa Desai of the Department of Internal Medicine Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright University Ohio and Prof Dr Pratibha Gupta Food Nutrition and Health Agricultural Research Development Programme Central State University OhioStress and lack of quality sleep are considered serious public health challenges despite modern lifestyles comforts and technological advances The Covid19 pandemic has genuinely brought attention to this preexisting stress problem by making it significantly worseThe study aimed to investigate whether using a virtual heartbased meditation program is associated with improved stress levels and quality of sleep The researchers enrolled 63 participants to receive an eightweek virtually conducted Heartfulness meditation program Of these 36 57 per cent completed the entire eight weeks of the Heartfulness meditation programmeThe participants were recommended to attend a minimum of two out of a total of eight virtual trainerguided group Heartfulness relaxation and meditation sessions each week These sessions conducted by one of the authors and a Heartfulness trainer KD included 57 min of relaxation followed by 20 min of meditationThey were also provided instructions on using the phone application called HeartsApp on their phones They could connect as an anonymous seeker with a Heartfulness trainer through the application and meditate without any audiovisual interaction They were also suggested selfpractices to the best of their abilitiesOur study showed that following Heartfulness meditation practice PSS and PSQI improved significantly in the participants from different parts of the United States About 31 per cent were healthcare professionals and the entire programme was conducted virtually Based on these observations we propose that meditation programmes offered via virtual platforms can offer a convenient helpful and easily accessible tool to a large community at once to help improve the psychological wellbeing of individuals said Dr Kunal Desai who led the studyThe results of qualitative analysis in our study bring a unique perspective to this aspect as we were able to show that the participants subjective experiences strongly supported the results of the survey findings Thus these results enhance our understanding of how Heartfulness meditation practice helps reduce stress and improve the quality of sleep Our qualitative analysis suggests these effects could be because a simple heartbased meditation brought a calming effect in our participants resulting in an inner peace Such an effect also resulted in inner changes in our participants including positive thinking accepting and empathic attitude and an increase in awareness of ones own emotions and the needs of othersThis study adds to the existing literature supporting the benefits of Heartfulness practice as reported by some previous studies showing the benefit of Heartfulness relaxation and meditation to reduce stress burnout loneliness and improve the quality of sleepAlso Read How young people are encouraging sexual health conversations among peers