Yoga Theses by PhD students
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Yoga Theses by Yoga PhD Students at SVYASA. These pages present some efforts at Scientific Validation of Yoga. You may receive full text of available yoga research papers
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Item SAFE USE OF SCREEN TIME AMONG ADOLESCENTS – A RANDOMIZED CONTROL STUDY FOR EFFICACY OF YOGA(S-VYASA, 2025-10-11) Manisha Mona; Sony Kumari; Nitin AnandBackground: Excessive screen time among adolescents has emerged as a major concern, contributing to negative outcomes such as depression, anxiety, behavioral issues, poor physical health, and diminished cognitive functioning. These include impaired executive functioning, anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, and smartphone addiction. The increasing dependency on digital media necessitates effective, holistic interventions. Holistic approaches like yoga may serve as effective interventions by enhancing self-regulation, mental clarity, and physical well-being. Aim: To evaluate the feasibility, efficacy, and validity of yoga-based interventions aimed at managing screen time and associated psychological and physical symptoms in adolescents. Methods: • Study 1: A needs assessment survey was conducted to understand concerns related to excessive screen usage behavior among students, teachers, and parents, with a focus on addressing the health-related impacts on adolescents. • Study 2: A comprehensive yoga module was developed using classical yogic texts and modern scientific literature. The module was reviewed and validated by 26 experienced yoga professors, each with over 10 years of expertise. A feasibility study (pilot study) was conducted to assess the module’s impact on screen time, mental health, and well-being in adolescents, using convenient sampling and non-random group allocation (15 in yoga, 15 in control group). • Study 3: This randomized controlled trial involved 100 schoolchildren aged 13–17 from Endeavour Academy, Bangalore. Participants were randomly assigned to either a yoga group or a control group using an online randomizer, with 50 participants in each. Sample size was calculated using G-Power software based on a prior pilot study, ensuring statistical power. Inclusion criteria focused on adolescents with adequate English skills and willingness to join the yoga program, while exclusions were based on lack of internet access, medical issues, or low screen time. Assessment: For study 1 need assessment survey was conducted based on self-developed google form questionnaire in online mode. For study 2 and study 3 participants were evaluated for Screen Time Use Questionnaire (STQ), WHO-5 Well-being Index, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) for assessing generalized anxiety and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) to assess depressive symptoms, and Smartphone Addiction Scale Short Version (SAS-SV). The questionnaires were administered before and after the duration of the study intervention. Additionally in study 2 Content validity of the yoga module developed for optimizing screen time was assessed using Lawshe’s Content Validity Ratio (CVR) Intervention: The study 1 was survey study. The yoga protocol executed in the study 2 and study 3 (main-study) consisted of shitalikarna vyayama (loosing Exercise), Shavasa prashvasa kriya (breathing practice), asanas (physical postures), relaxation technique (supine position) (QRT with affirmation), pranayama (breathing techniques), meditation, concept of four streams of yoga, sitting position, kriya, and yogic games. The yoga intervention was given 3 days a week, 45 minutes a day, for one months in study 2 and three months in study 3. The digital hygiene educational routine issued by UGC (India) was given to the control group for the equivalent duration as the yoga group in both the study. Results: • Study 1: Highlighted the multidimensional benefits of school-based yoga, as it supports students' physical, emotional, and cognitive well-being, fostering resilience and long term healthy development. Reports the evidences that suggests integrating yoga into school curriculums may be an effective, evidence-based strategy to counter the negative effects of excessive screen time. • Study 2: Six practices were removed due to low CVR scores, and 21 out of 27 validated practices were retained in the final module (CVI = 0.72). Feasibility study for authenticating the developed module showed a significant decrease in screen time (p<0.05) and improvements in anxiety (p<0.01), depression (p<0.001), and well-being (p<0.01) after the 12 sessions of intervention. • Study 3: Reported statistically significant reductions in screen time (p<0.001), smartphone addiction, anxiety (p<0.05), and depressive symptoms (p<0.01) in the yoga group. Substantial improvements were also noted in specific subcategories of screen time within the yoga group, with time spent watching television consistently decreasing across all periods [weekdays (p<0.01), weeknights (p<0.001), weekends (p<0.05)]. Conclusion: Yoga interventions significantly reduce excessive screen use and related health complications in adolescents. Incorporating yoga into school curricula offers a preventive and restorative approach to fostering balanced development. Continued research is recommended to further explore its long-term impact and application in broader educational and clinical settings. Keywords: Screen time, adolescents, yoga intervention, mental health, and smartphone addiction, school curriculum, mindfulness.Item Chandoyoga : Its effects on mindfulness, anxiety, self-concept, positive and negative affect & neuropsychological variables in adolescence(SVYASA, 2022-11-20) Mollika Ganguly; Sanjib Patra; Sampadananda Mishra, SAMPADANANDA MISHRABackground Adolescence is a critical age where due to immense physical and psychological transformations, children are found to have higher anxiety levels, identity crises leading to self-doubt, deregulated emotions etc. Failing to cope with these rapid changes there has been noticed decline in cognitive abilities like memory and attention affecting academic performance. Child and adolescent mental health (CAMH) is a growing concern all over the world. Mindfulness practices have not only been helpful in improving emotional quotient of an individual but its regular practice has also remarkably impacted awareness levels and attention in children. The present study hypothesized that practicing Sanskrit chanting as a mindfulness tool also identifying the benefits of the specific characteristic of chanting called Chanda/meters or Sanskrit prosody on equipping adolescents with better psychological health and improved cognitive abilities. The purpose was multi-fold 1. To have scientific evidence that Chandas/Sanskrit prosody (specific rhythms and pauses) has its own effect irrespective of the language, music, words or their meaning while chanting a shloka and validating its benefits mentioned in our ancient texts. 2. To make a study design that can identify the impact of the Chandas/prosody aspect of chanting and eliminating the factors like language, meaning of the phrase etc. 3. With this preliminary study and considering one type of Chanda, opening gates for researchers to further explore all kinds of Chandas to its maximum potential. 4. If the results matched our hypothesis, then we would like to conduct further study for children with special needs mainly ADHD and Autism spectrum disorder. viii Aims and Objectives Aim To study the effect of Chanda/Sanskrit prosody on cognitive abilities, mindfulness, anxiety and self-concept among adolescents. Objectives 1. To find the impact of Chanda/Sanskrit prosody on positive and negative emotions in school-going adolescents. 2. To find the impact of Chanda/Sanskrit prosody on cognitive performance in school going adolescents. 3. To identify the impact of Chanda/Sanskrit prosody on Anxiety, mindfulness and self concept in school-going adolescents. Research Question Does Chanda/Sanskrit prosody have any impact on emotions, cognitive performance, anxiety, mindfulness and self-concept scales in school-going adolescents? Hypothesis 1. Chanda/Sanskrit prosody has helpful effect on positive and negative emotions in school-going adolescents. 2. Chanda/Sanskrit prosody has positive impact on cognitive performance in school going adolescents. 3. Chanda/Sanskrit prosody has positive impact on anxiety, mindfulness and self concept scales in school-going adolescents. ix Null Hypothesis 1. Chanda/Sanskrit prosody has no effect in positive or negative emotions in school going adolescents. 2. Chanda/Sanskrit prosody has no impact on cognitive performance in school-going adolescents. 3. Chanda/Sanskrit prosody has no impact on anxiety, mindfulness and self-concept scales in school-going adolescents. Method: Participants Participants for the study were appointed from a CBSE School called Samsidh Mount Litera Zee School, from Urban Bangalore, India. Children from grades 7 and 8 who met the inclusion criteria were allocated into 4 groups of the study. Randomization for groups could not be done as these kids already were in 4 different sections and shuffling them during school hours was not permitted. Sample size This sample size was obtained by calculating the Effect size as 0.94, fixing alpha as “0.05”, power of the study as 0.8, based on the previous study (Telles et al., 2017). But considering the rate of drop out and conduct an appropriate statistical analysis, a sample size of 120 participants was considered for the proposed research. Design The design of the study was a four-armed control trial. The intervention period was 5 days a week for all four groups for one month. Baseline and post intervention data was collected in the school premises before and after 30 days. x Assessments The outcome measures comprised of (a) Positive and Negative Affect Scale for Children, (b) Stroop Color-Word Test, (c) Digit Letter Substitution Test, (d) Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale, (e) Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale for Children and (f) Children’s Self concept Scale. Data analysis: The study aimed to test the hypothesis that chanting or humming slokas/mantras in a Chanda is associated with significant differences in post intervention mean± SD to pre intervention values of children’s self-concept scale, anxiety, emotions, sustained attention, executive function, mindfulness and awareness in adolescence. Continuous variables were reported as mean ± SD, categorical variables as the frequency with percentage. For continuous outcomes, within-group pre-post comparisons were made by paired 't' test and for between-group comparisons, two-sample 't' test was used to compare outcomes at baseline and follow-up. All comparisons were two-sided. p <0.05 was set as the cut-off of statistical significance. A post hoc analysis was run to assess the superiority of group effect on each variable. STATA version 14.2 was used for statistical analysis. Result PANAS-C There was no difference in both domains of PANAS in within group analysis. However, the positive affect was statistically significant when compared between the groups (p<0.01). A post-hoc analysis revealed the superiority of the CM and HM groups in positive affect alone when compared with other two groups. xi DLST and Stroop Test Within-group analysis using sample t-test demonstrated significant changes in HC, CS, and SS groups (p<0.001) with DLST scores. Post-hoc analysis revealed that the CS group had higher scores; however, there were no differences between the HC and CS groups. Stroop scores improved in all groups except for the SS group. Post-hoc analysis to examine the superiority between groups presented a higher statistical significance in CS group when compared to HC group. A statistical significance was also observed between the chanting and SS group. There were statistical differences within the group in both HC and CS groups in the Stroop mistake scores, but no differences were observed between groups. Anxiety, MAAS-C and Self-concept A significant change was noticed in the domains of anxiety, Intellectual and school status, physical appearance and attributes, and the total scores of the self-concept scale in all the four groups after the interventions. On pairwise group comparisons, the change in the domain of anxiety was significant for the Chanting vs English phrase reading, Chanting vs Humming and Chanting vs Silent sitting (p<0.05). When intellectual and school status for English phrase reading was compared to Silent sitting group, a significant difference was depicted (p<0.05). Also, Physical appearance and attributes scores and total scores were found significantly improved for Chanting vs Humming but only total scores in humming vs Silent sitting groups. There was a significant change in all the domains except happiness and satisfaction after chanting (p<0.01). However, participants in the English phrase reading group also showed a significant increase in the scores of anxiety and total scores of the Self-concept scale after intervention (p<0.01 and p=0.03). There was reduction in the anxiety levels for the humming group whereas increase in all anxiety scores in the remaining three groups. xii Conclusion Humming of Sanskrit prosody has reported an overall reduction in anxiety levels when compared to the remaining three groups. However, there was a decrease in the anxiety levels in the chanting group as well. There was a significant increase in mindfulness scores in the humming as well as chanting groups. Also, there was no change observed in the self-concept scales in the humming group. Beside this, mantra chanting and only humming the prosody without verse, had a similar effect on both emotional personality features of positive and negative effect. The results also suggest amelioration in the positive affect following chanting and humming the prosody, although there were no changes in the negative effect. Keywords: Sanskrit-prosody, Chanda, Adolescence, Self-concept, Anxiety, Mindfulness, positive & Negative affect, Mindfulness, sustained attention and Stroop effectItem EFFECT OF YOGA ON PHYSICAL AND PSYCHO-SOCIAL WELL-BEING OF ORPHANS: A RANDOMISED CONTROLLED STUDY(S-VYASA, 2016-03) PUROHIT, SATYA PRAKASHBackground: Childhood parental loss, parental separation, poverty and rearing in orphanages have negative impact on physical, psychological and social well-being in orphans. Yoga has a profound knowledge base and practical solutions for such traumatic consequences. Aim: The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of a yoga program on the physical fitness, psychological and social well-being of adolescents staying in an orphanage. Methods: A total of 72 apparently healthy adolescents from an orphanage were randomized (based on their age and gender) and allocated into two groups as Yoga Group (YG) (n = 40; 14 girls, 26 boys, age = 12.69±1.35) and Wait-list Control Group (WLC) (n = 32, 13 girls, 19 boys, age = 12.58±1.52). The YG underwent three months of yoga program in a schedule of 90 min. per day, four days per week whereas the WLC group underwent day to day activities. Assessment was done in both groups at the beginning and end of the program. Results: Physical fitness (Euro-fit physical fitness test): The group*time interaction analysis showed significant (p < 0.05) positive differences in Flamingo left leg balance (FLL), Flamingo right leg balance (FLR), Left hand tapping test (PTL), Right hand tapping test (PTR), Sit and Reach (SAR), Standing broad jump (SBJ), Sit-ups (SUP), Band arm hand test (BAH) and Shuttle-run (SHR) in YG compared to WLC group. Within group comparisons, post-hoc test with Bonferroni adjustment showed significant reduction in FLL and improvement in PTL, SBJ, SUP, LHS and RHS in the both groups whereas significant (p < 0.001) improvements in FLR, PTR, BAH and SHR were found only in YG. A significant (p < 0.001) decrement was found in SAR in WLC group. Minimum muscular fitness was assessed using the Kraus-Weber test that the percentage of students passed in YG were 20 %, and 75 % in pre and post tests respectively whereas percentages in control group remained the same (40.6%) in both tests. Mc Nemar test shows significant differences between pre and post (p < 0.001) in YG while those in WLC was not significant. Cognitive functions: The group*time interaction result showed significant differences (p < 0.05) in Stroop word (STROOP_W), Stroop color (STROOP_C) and Stroop color and word (STROOP_CW), Digit Span Forward (DS_F), Digit Span Backward (DS_B), Digit Span Total (DS_T), Trial Making Test-A (TMT_A), total and net score of Six Letter Cancelation Test (SLCT) whereas there were no significance in Trial Making Test-B (TMT_B), wrong score of SLCT and in all sub tests of Digit letter Substitution Test (DLST) and Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST). Within group comparisons, post-hoc test with Bonferroni adjustment showed that there were significant improvement (p < 0.001) in domain score for STROOP_W and STROOP_C, DS_F, and (p < 0.05) in DLST in both the groups, whereas Total and net score of SLCT, total score of DSST, DS_B, TMT_A, and TMT_B were improved significantly (p < 0.001) only in YG. Psycho-social variables: The groups*time interaction showed significant changes (p < 0.05) in the scores of State Trait Anxiety Inventory for children (STAI-C), Aggression scale (AS), Barratt’s Impulsive scale-Brief (BIS); whereas there were no significant change found in Children’s Depression Inventory-2 (CDI), Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (RSES), Children’s Loneliness Scale (CLS) and Children’s Assessment of Mindfulness (CAMM). Within group comparisons, post-hoc test with Bonferroni adjustment showed significant improvements (p < 0.001) in scores for STAI-C, CDI, AS, BIS, RSES and (p = 0.012) in CAMM in YG whereas significant changes (p < 0. 05) were observed in CDI, AS and RSES where as no significant differences were found (p > 0.05) in STAI, BIS, CAMM in WLC group. The between groups post vs. post result showed that there were significant changes (p < 0.05) in the scores of STAI-C, AS, BIS, and in CAMM whereas there were no significant difference in (p > 0.05) in CDI and RSES. Conclusion: The overall results suggested that the three months yoga program was found useful for the young orphan adolescents in improving physical fitness, cognitive functions and psycho-social parameters of orphan adolescents. Yoga may prove to be a simple, yet important, method of enhancing orphan’s various aspects of health.