Efficacy of Yoga for sustained attention in university students

Abstract

Sustained attention (SA) is a vital function mediated by the right frontal - parietal cortex. The digit vigilance test (DVT) measures SA. Assessment of SA in students for their academic excellence is considered to be an essential part of a neuropsychological evaluation. The objective of this study is to determine SA in students undergoing training of integrated Yoga module (IYM). A total of 66 university students aged between 18-37 years participated in this study with a single group pre-post design. The DVT data was collected before and after the IYM. Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 19 was used for data analysis. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test showed that the data were not normally distributed. The Wilcoxon's signed ranks test was used to compare means of data. The data analysis showed 11.66% decrease (P < 0.001) in total time taken for DVT and 31.90% decrease (P < 0.001) in error scores for DVT. The present study suggests that IYM can result in improvement of SA among students, thus paving the way for their academic excellence. Additional well-designed studies are needed before a strong recommendation can be made.

Changes in Shape and Size Discrimination and State Anxiety After Alternate-Nostril Yoga Breathing and Breath Awareness in One Session Each

“…Yoga breathing has been found to improve attention based on a digit vigilance task (Cohen’s=0.61) [11] and reduce reaction time (Cohen’s d=0.404) [16]. The yoga breathing practices differed, since in some practices the emphasis was on increasing the rate [17], while in others the emphasis was on the depth of breathing [18].…”

Psychophysiological effects of yoga on stress in college students

“…It was observed that Suryanamaskara, a yogic practice was effective in leading to relaxation dispositions such as physical relaxation, mental quiet, at ease/peace, rested and refreshed, strength and awareness and joy and reduces sleepiness, somatic stress, worry and negative emotion at a dispositional level. [ 18 ] Yogic practices play an important role in enhancing emotional sensitivity,[ 19 ] sustained attention,[ 20 ] mental performance,[ 21 ] and balance personality trait[ 22 ] among students, thus paving the way for their academic excellence. Yoga also reduces perceived stress and negative affects in college students thereby improving psychological well-being in them.…”

The Effect of Yoga Exercise on Selective Attention of Collegiate Athletes Following Short-Term Sleep Deprivation

“…This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly cited. associated with task difficulty or complexity (6).…”