Health-Related Quality Of Life Outcomes With Regular Yoga And Heartfulness Meditation Practice: Results From A Multinational, Cross-sectional Study

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented crisis, the effects of which have been felt globally. In March 2020, there were 372,757 reported cases from 170 countries, followed by a rapid rise in cases and geographical spread, with over 440 million people affected by COVID-19 globally as of February 2022; during the past 2 years, the pandemic caused disruptions in physical, mental, and emotional health, severely impacting the health-related quality of life (HRQOL). HRQOL is an individual’s or a group’s perceived physical and mental health over time. It is an important measure used to assess the impact of diseases or disabilities on the physical, mental, and social domains of population health. A growing body of evidence suggests the current pandemic has had a substantial negative impact on various dimensions of HRQOL, thus highlighting the need to prioritize both mental and physical health dimensions in these challenging times.

Prior literature has suggested the practice of yoga and meditation can significantly improve an individual’s HRQOL. Yoga, a mind-body practice that includes a combination of physical poses, regulated breathing, and meditation, is one of the world’s most popular practices for general well-being. Yoga and meditative practices are effective interventions for chronic health conditions including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and cancer. Furthermore, the practice is beneficial in decreasing inflammation and improving immune system function, favorably affecting mental health by reducing depression and anxiety. Although the benefits of yoga and meditation are well established around the world, there are limited studies exploring the long-term interrelation between yoga, meditation, and health. Specifically, there is limited research exploring the differences in HRQOL among meditators and nonmeditators. The aim of this study was to explore the differences in 7 domains of HRQOL (quality of life, ability to adopt a healthy lifestyle, ability to relax, frequency of nervousness and stress, coping with day-to-day stress, workplace productivity, and staying healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic) among individuals who participated in a 100-day virtual yoga and meditation program, culminating in the International Day of Yoga event.

Keywords
yoga; meditation (13); health-related quality of life (12); Heartfulness (1); COVID-19 (922); healthy living (1); wellness (3); quality of life (46); stress (55); mental health (309); psychological health; online survey (15); cross-sectional study (4); health outcome

This study was cross-sectional in nature and was conducted as a program evaluation. As such, it was exempt from institutional review board approval. However, informed consent and password protection for data collection were included. This e-survey design was reported using the CHERRIES (Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys) guidelines. Participation was voluntary and included signing an electronic informed consent form prior to accessing the survey questionnaire.

Participants’ demographic characteristics are related to the 3164 participants included in the analysis, the majority were female (n=1643, 51.93%) and students (n=1312, 41.47%). Participants' mean age was 33.87 (SD 13.61, range 18-80) years. Of the 39 countries that participated in the program, most of the participants were from India (n=3020, 95.45%), followed by the United States (n=29, 0.92%) and United Arab Emirates (n=17, 0.53%). Of 3164 participants in the sample, 1647 (52.05%) were regular yoga practitioners, and 1517 were categorized as nonregular yoga practitioners (47.95%). Further, 64.89% (n=2053) reported experience with Heartfulness meditation practice and 35.11% (n=1111) did not practice Heartfulness meditation. Among the Heartfulness meditation practitioners, 38.28% (n=786) reported ≤1 year of practice, 59.28% (n=1217) had practiced for ≥2 years, and 2.44% (n=50) of participants reported not currently practicing this form of meditation.
To conclude, this study showed that regular yoga and meditation practice was associated with factors promoting health and well-being, with long-term meditation practice associated with increased benefits. This study is one of the first cross-sectional studies to analyze the effects of a 100-day virtual yoga and meditation program and has 3 key findings. First, the demographic results suggest most practitioners are female and students/educated. Our findings corroborate those of other studies in several countries such as the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia, where yoga and meditation practitioners were mostly female and educated. Although those studies reported an average age between 39-41 years, this study, in contrast, had a younger population with an average age of 33.8 years and mostly student participants. These findings concur with recent studies in the Indian setting reporting that students and a younger population make up most participants in yoga events.

Second, participants were highly engaged throughout the program period, given that 100 days of yoga and meditation is a substantial time commitment. A notable average participation rate of 71 days, with 53.22% attending sessions every day for 100 days, suggests that participants were willing to engage in online activity to enhance their well-being. Limited research exists to compare engagement rates of programs centered around International Yoga Day events with previous literature.

Third, results examining the effect of yoga demonstrated that regular practice had a statistically significant positive impact on all 7 domains of HRQOL. Similar results have been reported by several studies examining the effect of yoga on mental and physical health. There is overwhelming evidence indicating that the frequency of yoga practice positively predicts its health benefits [35,36,38,41,42]. Another important finding of this study was that meditation had a statistically significant positive impact on all the HRQOL domains (P<.05). Interestingly, participants with ≥2 years of experience reported a higher impact on all domains of HRQOL as compared to participants with ≤1 year of meditation practice. The findings imply that sustained practice may cumulatively increase the benefits for well-being. This contrasts with a recent study that found no association between years of meditation practice and mental well-being. Nevertheless, findings from this study concur with previous literature suggesting a positive correlation between perception of health, well-being, and years of meditation practice.

The more specific data information is related to the reference below ↓

Reference
Thimmapuram, J., Patel, K., Madhusudhan, D. K., Deshpande, S., Bouderlique, E., Nicolai, V., & Rao, R. (2022). Health-Related Quality of Life Outcomes With Regular Yoga and Heartfulness Meditation Practice: Results From a Multinational, Cross-sectional Study. JMIR Formative Research, 6(5), e37876.