Reduction of cardiovascular hyper reactivity after 12 week practice of ujjayi pranayam and shavasan in adult human volunteers

Background: Stress and anxiety have been implicated as contributors to many chronic diseases and to decreased quality of life, even with pharmacologic treatment. Efforts are underway to find non-pharmacologic therapies to relieve stress and anxiety, and yoga is one option for which results are promising. (Li and Goldsmith, 2011) Aims & Objective: The aim of present study was to investigate whether regular practice of Yoga for 12 weeks can reduce the cardiovascular hyper-reactivity induced by cold pressure test. Materials and Methods: The study group comprises 50 healthy subjects of 18 - 25 years age group. At the beginning of the study, there were 22 hyper-reactors to cold pressure test. The hyper-reactivity of 16 (72.72%) volunteers converted to hypo-reactivity after the yoga therapy of 12 weeks. Other parameters like basal blood pressure, rise in blood pressure after cold pressure test, pulse rate and Rate Pressure Product (RPP) were also statistically reduced up to significant level. Result: Regular practice of yoga significantly reduces values of basal blood pressure, cardiovascular hyper-reactivity to blood pressure after one minute of cold stress, heart rate, & rate pressure product after 12 weeks of yoga practice. Conclusions: Non-pharmacological methods like yoga, meditation, diet, weight reduction and life style modification should been encouraged to control the modifiable risk factors. The cardiovascular parameters alter with age, but these alterations are slower in persons ageing with regular yoga practice. It can thus be concluded that these results and their explanations would justify the incorporation of yoga as part of our life style in prevention of age–related cardiovascular complications.