Yoga for Psychological Wellbeing of Orphan Children

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Orphan children are the most vulnerable individuals receiving the ill effects of the crisis and conflicts happening around the world. Orphaned children staying in the orphanages have multi-dimensional problems which encompass the domains of psychophysiological, social well-being, quality of life and other health related issues. Yoga in its classical form consisted of a system of ethical, psychological and physical practices which develops the person at biopsychosocial-spiritual level. LITERARY REVIEW Happiness is a subjective experience; its understanding differs in every person. From the review of ancient scriptures, it was very clear that happiness is a state of silence of mind. Agitation caused by lust and anger, attachment, the desire of the mind, arrogance and ignorance are the root causes for the unhappiness. Solution to achieve eternal happiness is calming down the mind. Review of scientific literature enumerates contributions and findings of various studies done in the psychological well-being in orphans. Further, emotional regulation, mental well-being, and happiness, yoga and mindfulness among children were explored. A growing number of studies have confirmed relation between psychological wellbeing and orphan hood. Further the scope of yoga as feasible intervention. AIMS The main aims of the studies were, to explore the relationship between mindfulness and psychological well-being in orphan children, and evaluate the effect of Yoga based program on psychological well-being in orphan children. METHODS SUBJECTS In this thesis, two different studies were reported. For the Study I, mindfulness and psychological well-being study, 42 Boys and 98 Girls with a mean age of 12.41 years (SD=1.18) were selected from three orphan homes in Tamil Nadu. For Yoga based program on psychological well-being – Study II, 26 Boys and 41 Girls with a mean age of 12.42 years (SD=1.03) were recruited from Good Life Centre in Tamil Nadu. DESIGN The research design was a cross-sectional (Study I), and randomized control trial (Study II). ASSESSMENT TOOLS Self-report measures were administered to understand the psychological wellbeing. Assessment tools consisted of Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure (CAMM), Cognitive Functioning Scale (CFS), Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), Short Depression Happiness Scale (SDHS) and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children (PANAS-C). DATA EXTRACTION AND ANALYSIS The data was collected using self-reported questionnaires. All statistical analysis was performed using the computing environment R (version 3.4.0). Pearson correlations, Independent-samples t-tests and Paired sample t-tests procedures were used for statistical analyses.RESULTS The results of two different studies can be summarized as: 1) There was significant correlation observed between mindfulness and depression among orphan adolescents (r=-.53, p<0.01). Further, mindfulness had significant relationships to cognitive function (r=.30, p<0.01), positive affect (r=.33, p<0.01) and negative emotion (r=-.38, p<0.01). Regression analysis showed that depression accounted 39% of variance in the model contains mindfulness, positive affect, and negative affect. 2) Post yoga intervention showed statistically significant differences in mindfulness (p < 0.005 d=0.52), happiness (p < 0.023 d=0.41), depression (p < 0.002 d=0.58), suppression (p < 0.037, d=0.37), positive affect (p < 0.040 d=-0.36) and negative affect (p < 0.040, d=0.37) in yoga group, while in the control group, did not find significant differences. CONCLUSIONS This study supports the emerging literature on the benefits of mindfulness construct. Results from this first study offered initial information on the possible interaction between mindfulness and wellbeing among orphan children. Present findings will encourage the mindfulness-based interventions targeting well-being of an orphan adolescent. Further, study II results have shown promising effects of yoga-based intervention on enhancement of psychological wellbeing among orphan children. Furthermore, rigorous trials are needed to explore the long-term effect and its implication in the objective measures and to explore the underlying mechanisms.