English

Abstract

Effects of six weeks training followed by six weeks practicing session of TM was studied on respiratory rate and breathe holding time in 37 male and 38 female volunteers. There was significant decrease in respiratory rate and significant increase in breathe holding time in both males and females after TM session. It is therefore concluded that regular practice of TM would increase respiratory efficiency and would be useful in preventing and treating psychosomatic and other respiratory diseases. Key Words-Transcendental Meditation, Breath Holding Time, Respiratory Rate International Journal of Medical and Clinical Research ISSN:0976–5530 & E-ISSN:0976–5549, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2012 Introduction Autonomic nervous system links brain and body [1] Several workers have studied the effects of yogic practices on autonomic nervous system [2, 3, 4, 5] It is quite likely that through this system such yogic practices improve the efficiency of respiratory system. Varieties of yogic practices appear to affect lung function and are useful in certain psychosomatic respiratory diseases [6 -14] In today’s fast pace life people do not afford to spare more time on doing yogic practices. It was therefore thought to study the effect of TM (only for 20 mins in a day) is effective or not. TM was chosen in the present study as it is the most common form of meditation involving mental repetition of mantra and is easy to learn. Volunteers were trained for 6 weeks for TM and then this was followed by practicing session of TM for 6 weeks. Respiratory rate and breath holding time were recorded before and after the training and practicing session and compared. Materials and methods For the present study 75 volunteers were selected.38 volunteers were females and 37 volunteers were males. Following criteria were used for selectivity of the volunteers  Age between 18-45 years  Intelligent and co-operative subjects likely to adhere to the project program  No history of heart attacks, hypertension or any other chronic illness that required regular pharmacological treatment.  No history of major psychological disorders, current alcohol abuse /dependency disorders.  Each volunteer was explained the whole program and the consent were obtained. Following parameters were studied in each volunteer at rest and were noted as controlled readings.  Respiratory rateOne inspiration followed by expiration is considered as one respiratory cycle .Counting of respiratory rate was done with special care because if person becomes conscious of his/her breathing, the respiratory rate changes. To avoid this, attention of the volunteer was distracted by talking with him. Respiratory rate was noted as stated above for three times and average was taken and noted as respiratory rate per minute.  Breath holding time (Breath holding after full inspiration)Volunteer was asked to take inspiration and then hold the Citation: Mendhurwar SS and Gadakari JG (2012) Effect of transcendal meditation on respiratory rate and breath holding time. International Journal of Medical and Clinical Research, ISSN: 0976–5530 & E-ISSN:0976–5549, Volume 3, Issue 1, pp-101-104. Copyright: Copyright©2012 Mendhurwar SS and Gadakari JG. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.