Heart Rate Variability Changes during Sahaja Yoga Meditation

Background & Objectives Yoga and meditation is now widely accepted world wide as an effective tool to combat stress. Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a noninvasive tool to measure sympathetic and parasympathetic function of the autonomic nervous system. Yoga, by modulating stress, has shown to decrease the activity of sympathetic component of autonomic nervous system and enhance parasympathetic component. Only few studies have compared HRV at baseline with HRV during or after single session of yoga. Thus, this study was undertaken with the objectives to compare HRV changes of Sahaja Yoga Meditators in resting state with their Meditation state and to compare these changes with HRV changes in the control group in resting and meditation mimicking state. Method A prospective randomized controlled study was conducted. The study group comprised of 30 randomly selected long term Sahaja yoga mediators and a control group of 30 subjects with no prior practice of any kind of meditation. HRV was recorded in both the groups in normal resting state, during meditation (yoga group) and with eyes closed (mimicking meditation in control group). Results Study showed decrease in LF (sympathetic activity) increase in HF (parasympathetic activity) and decrease in LF/HF ratio thus implying a more relaxed, parasympathetic dominant state, in the yoga group during meditation. Conclusion The study shows Sahaja Yoga meditation leads to a parasympathetic dominant (relaxed) state and thus can be used as an effective mind body technique to combat stress.