Context:Response inhibition is a key executive control processes. An inability to inhibit inappropriate actions has been linked to a large range of neurologic and neuropsychiatric disorders.Aims:Examine the effect of Bhramari Pranayama (Bhpr) on response inhibition in healthy individuals.Settings and Design:Thirty-one male students age ranged from 19-31 years from a residential Yoga University, Bengaluru, India were recruited for this study. We used a randomized self as control within-subjects design. Participants were counterbalanced randomly into two different experimental conditions (Bhpr and deep breathing (DB)).Materials and Methods:Response inhibition has been measured using a standard tool Stop Signal Task (SST). Each session lasted for 50 min with 10 min for the experimental conditions, preceded and followed by 20 min of assessment. The primary outcome measure was stop signal reaction time (SSRT), an estimate of the subject's capacity for inhibiting prepotent motor responses. Additional measures of interest were the probability of responding on stop signal trials, P (r | s) and mean RT to go stimuli.Results:The mean probability of responding on stop signal trials (P (r | s)) during Bhpr and DB are close to 50%, indicating reliable SSRT. Paired sample t-tests showed a significant decrease (P = 0.024) in SSRT after Bhpr session, while the DB group did not show any significant change. Further, t-tests show that the go RT increased significantly after Bhpr (P = 0.007) and no other changes/differences were observed.Conclusions:Bhpr enhanced response inhibition and cognitive control in nonclinical participants.

abstract. The aim of this study was to measure the changes in stress, general health index and disorderliness in human energy pattern through Integrated Yoga Practices (IYP). Ninety four healthy volunteers (male 55 and female 39), age (mean ± sd 26.70 ±8.58) were assessed before and after four weeks of IYP. The experiment was conducted four times and the assessment was done by utilizing the Electro Photonic Imaging (EPI) technique. comparisons were made to ascertain whether energy homeostasis diverges based on genders. The parameters considered for analysis were activation coefficient (ac), Integral area (Ia) and Integral Entropy (IE). Reduction in stress levels (ac), increase in general health index (Ia) and decrease in disorderliness (IE) on the left side parameters were found reproducible in all four experiments. The results also revealed a highly significant reduction in stress levels and highly significant improvement in the health indices at the psycho-physiological level. The subgroup analysis of both male and female demonstrated a significant reduction in stress levels and significant improvement in health index (psycho-physiological). baseline comparisons between males and females showed significant difference in general health index at both psychophysiological and physiological levels. In conclusion, IYP regulates, improves and prolongs energy homeostasis of an organism. Therefore, it helps in prevention of ill health and also preserves health. The EPI outcomes are reproducible. Further, the present study also found that the energy pattern differs with gender. Hence, it is suggested that studies with male and female participants may be conducted separately.

BackgroundMeditation techniques are known to elicit relaxation response in which moving meditation which combines the practice of yoga postures and guided relaxation is known as Cyclic Meditation reported helpful in reducing the sympathetic arousal and improving health of practitioners.ObjectivesThe objective of this study was to investigate the effect of Cyclic Meditation on stress and health indices in managers as measured by Electro Photonic Imaging (EPI) technique.Materials and methodsEPI technique was used to assess participants before and after 35 min of Cyclic Meditation (CM) and equal duration of Supine Rest (SR) session. A total of sixty six male managers, age ranges from 35 to 60 years (mean ± SD 53.97 ± 5.96) were included in the study. EPI parameters, including Activation Coefficient, Integral Area left and right and Integral Entropy, left and right were taken for statistical analyses.ResultsCyclic Meditation has produced a highly significant reduction in stress level, whereas this reduction was not found significant within SR group. There was a significant improvement in health index ‘Integral Area’ values in both left and right sides within the CM group while only IA right side showed a significant improvement within the CM group. The integral entropy value right side decreased significantly within the CM group, whereas IE left was found deteriorated within the SR group. Moreover, only IE left side has shown a significant difference between the groups.ConclusionThe investigations in this study suggest that Cyclic Meditation practice reduces stress and improves psychosomatic health indices more effectively than Supine Rest in managers.

Women of LTM and STM demonstrated lesser stress than men. Both groups showed cumulative health-related improvement. Moreover, in gender-related analysis woman meditators exhibited more positive improvement in EPI parameters than men.

Electro photonic imaging (EPI) is being researched relative to its application for yoga therapy. Three parameters of interest in EPI measurements are as follows: Communication energy (C), integral or normalized area (IA), and Entropy (E). It is important to note that C indicates the total energy of communication for the organ system; IA is an indication of total amount of energy that is available for the organ system while entropy is an indication of the amount of coherence of the energy. Coherence and entropy are inversely related; this means less the entropy, more the coherence and vice versa. Illustrative cases of successful therapy with yoga practices in a wide variety of abnormal conditions are examined, and in every case, entropy is shown to decrease for the affected organ system while communication energy stays within stable range. Relative to the electromagnetic (Rubik) and living matrix (Oschman) models, it is suggested that the regulation of energy, its coherence in the biological system and interaction with life processes provide the basis for model building and design of health-promoting procedures. Further, this approach is examined relative to yoga theory, traditional medicine systems, and scientific developments in the field of gene expression and neuroplasticity and a generalized model that we call Unified System of Medicine is proposed. This model has direct implications on methods used to control the environmental factors to get robust results from EPI application for therapeutic purposes. Implications for furthering research in yoga therapy using EPI and implications of EPI as a translational technology between traditional medicine systems and modern medicine is discussed.

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Background:Mudras signify a gesture with hands, eyes, and the body. Different configurations of the joining of fingertips are also termed mudra and are used by yoga practitioners for energy manipulation and for therapeutic applications. Electrophotonic imaging (EPI) captures the coronal discharge around the fingers as a result of electron capture from the ten fingers. The coronal discharge around each fingertip is studied to understand the effect of mudra on EPI parameters.Methods:The participants were from Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana and Sushrutha Ayurvedic Medical College, in Bengaluru, India. There were 29 volunteers in the mudra group and 32 in the control group. There were two designs: one was a pre-post design with control the other was pre-post with repeated measures with 18 individuals practicing mudra for 3 days. The duration of intervention for the pre-post design was 10 min on the 1st day, 15 min on the 2nd day, and 20 min on the 3rd day. A neural network classifier was used for classifying mudra and control samples.Results:The EPI parameters, normalized area and average intensity, passed the test of normality Shapiro–Wilk. The Cohen's d, effect size was 0.988 and 0.974 for the mudra and control groups, respectively. Neural network-based analysis showed the classification accuracy of the post-intervention samples for mudra and control varied from 85% to 100% while the classification accuracy varied from 55% to 70% for the pre-intervention samples. The result of the mudra intervention showed statistically significant changes in the mean values on the 3rd day compared to the 1st day.Conclusions:The effect size of the variations in mudra was more than that of the control group. Mudra practice of a longer duration showed statistically significant change in the EPI parameter, average intensity in comparison to the practice on the 1st day.