Study Shows Adolescents at Behavioral Health Center Report a Feeling of Well Being after Yoga
Adolescents at a Behvioral Helath Center surveyed after a Yoga session report feelings of well being in Body and Mind. Is it possible that with certain practises regions of the brain are activated which contribute to the feeling of well being?
(PRWEB) June 6, 2005 -- The best way to assess the benefits of any program is
to ask the participants, who actually experience the program. With this in mind,
a pilot study was undertaken to determine how adolescents at a behavioral health
center really felt both physically and mentally after participating in a session
of Yoga. Yoga classes have been held for abou3 years at his facility on a
bi-weekly basis.
The survey was brief, simple, and administered by an
unbiased third party to participants after a Yoga session. The sessions held
separately for the boys and girls were of one hour duration, between 7.00pm and
9.00pm. The survey was done over 10 sessions covering 142 participants between
the ages of 13 and 18. Of those surveyed, 64 were male and 78 female.
The
adolescent center has on-going admissions and discharges, hence, respondents
were not all the same for all the ten sessions surveyed. This gave the survey an
element of randomness, which is desirable and good.
The adolescents were
asked to answer the questions below on a 1 to 5 scale (1 being Bad and 5 being
Good). The table below gives the score for each group.
(Scores on 1………….... 5 scale)
Bad
Good
Boys
Girls
Q1. At this
moment how
4.51
3.81
I feel in my body
Q2. At this moment
4.46
3.94
I feel in my
Mind
Q3. At this moment
4.38
3.83
my stress level is
Q4. At this
moment
4.2
3.4
my energy level
is
The results are based on a pilot study of 142 respondents (64 boys and
78 girls) over 10 sessions.
The results clearly show that after a session of
yoga the adolescents had a sense of well being in both mind and body. They
reported less stress, more energy, and commented numerous times on how yoga made
them feel better afterwards, both mentally and physically.
Dr. Peter
Armendariz -Adolescent Psychiatrist at the Southwestern Behavioral Health Center
in Lawton, Oklahoma felt that yoga had great potential to supplement the regular
medical treatment for both anxiety and aggression in adolescents. He was looking
for an experienced and knowledgeable instructor. Arun Tilak, a yoga instructor,
having had his teachers training at one of the oldest yoga institutions in the
world was looking for just this sort of opportunity. After the two met it was
decided to try yoga on an experimental basis. The yoga sessions were to be part
of a bi-weekly voluntary group activity for the adolescents. Dr. Armendariz’s
brief to Tilak was to try and teach participants conscious relaxation and as a
corollary reduce aggressive tendencies and incidents. The program was focused
toward 2 main goals; the elimination of negative thought patterns and
destructive emotions, and increasing the gap between action and reaction
(basically to address issues like aggressive behavior). Zach Patterson a
psychology student helped develop, administer and tabulate the questionnaire
.
Yoga sessions have been held for adolescents at the Southwestern
Behavioral Health Center in Lawton, OK over the past 3 years. The psychiatrists,
staff, participants and yoga instructor have often mentioned that yoga has had
very beneficial results on the adolescents. It was hence felt that it would be
best to survey the actual users / participants.
The critical issue, is to
determine whether similar results can be achieved consistently across larger and
diverse group.
A number of scientists and doctors are studying the
effects of meditative states, like the ones used in yoga, on emotions and
thought patterns. Very often the test subjects are a most obvious source,
Buddhist monks well skilled in the art of meditation. Brains of volunteers
acting as a control group, are also studied using brain scans to show brain
activity in both groups. It is reported that persons who use meditation
apparently tend to be at a lower risk for negative emotions and show a
corresponding pattern of increased activity in the left prefrontal cortex, an
area associated with happiness and well-being. On the other hand, individuals
who tend to be less resistant to stress and negative emotions, show a
significant increase in activity in the right prefrontal cortex. It has also
been reported that persons who practiced meditative techniques had a healthier
immune system, and reportedly were much happier.
The findings of the
pilot study clearly reveal that the adolescents experience a sense of well being
in Mind & Body after a session of Yoga. If the adolescents were tested in
the same way as the monks were, would we find similar patterns of activity
taking place in their brains? It seems to be, that they may well be activating
the similar parts of the brain as the meditating monks trigerring a sense of
well being.
It would be a phenomenal achievement if techniques could be
taught to troubled teens or even to the average individual so that they learn to
control their negative emotions and anxiety. Indeed, for most adolescents, a
difficult thing to achieve is the control of negative emotions and behaviors
which can often escalate and lead to disastrous consequences.
Further
research is necessary to establish if there is any correlation between changes
in brain patterns and practices like yoga.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/6/prweb248015.htm