Effect of Long-Term Yoga Practice on Stress, Blood Pressure, and Pupil Limbus Diameter Ratio

Abstract

Background:Yoga has been reported to provide potential health benefits for anxiety, stress reduction, and general well-being. The relaxation induced by meditation helps to stabilize the autonomic nervous system with a tendency towards parasympathetic dominance. Long-term yoga practice helps yoga practitionersbecome more resilient to stressful conditions and reduce a variety of important risk factors for various diseases. Pupil to limbus Diameter [PLD]is a simple non-invasive technique to identify the altered autonomic responses during yoga practice. Perceived stress scale [PSS] is the most widely employed psychological instrument for measuring the perception of stress. It measures the degree to which situations in one's life are appraised as stressful. Methodology: Thus the study aims to assessthe autonomic changes and stress levels in long-term yoga practitioners by assessing the PLD ratio and noting the PSS scale in 48 control and 45 yoga practitioners recruited from the Yogisha Mission Trust. As the regular practice of yoga is known to regulate Systolic blood pressure (SBP) and Diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in hypertensive patients, changes in blood pressure, pulse rate (PR) and respiratory rate (RR) were recorded. Result: There was a significant decrease in the mean PLD ratio of the right eye, left eye and both eyes when compared between the control and the study group[ yoga practicing group] (p<0.05). A significant reduction in perceived stress levelblood pressure, PR and RR was noted in people practicing yoga when compared to the control group (p<0.05). Conclusion: From our study, we conclude that long-term practice of yoga helps in the reduction of stress, blood pressureand PLD ratio.