Potential Application of Yoga-Preksha-Meditation to Prevent Stress-Induced Anger in Healthy Adults - A Pilot Study

Abstract

Background: Responses to perceived-stress trigger toxic emotions of anger. Uncontrolled anger outburst enhances aggressiveness, disrupts personal relationships and social harmony; impairing quality of life. Development of cost-effective preventive strategies to reduce levels of stress, anger and violence is vital for public health. Objectives: To (i) quantitatively investigate relationships between perceived-stress, anger and quality of life; (ii) identify vulnerable individuals using stress-anger reactivity and (iii) explore the effectiveness of Preksha-Meditation practice as a preventive strategy. Methods: In a single-arm pre-and postintervention study, healthy adults recruited from 7-day residential Preksha-Meditation training camps were administered Preksha-Meditation. Pre-and post-intervention levels of variables, measured by validated and reliable self-report questionnaires, from 50 subjects could be analyzed and compared using t-test. Results: Despite heterogeneous scores, perceivedstress and anger correlated positively. Quality of life correlated negatively with both stress and anger. Assessment of individual's stress-anger reactivity can identify vulnerable persons who develop uncontrollable anger. Post Preksha-Meditation, average scores of perceivedstress and anger declined significantly. Stress-anger-reactivity was reduced in majority (70%) of subjects, indicating enhancement of coping capacities. Interestingly, males displayed larger reductions in levels of perceived-stress-anger and in stress-anger reactivity leading to better quality of life. Conclusion: Intense PM training in short-term retreats is a feasible and costeffective approach to reduce stress-induced anger. Comprehensive longitudinal studies on larger samples to verify and extend the present preliminary findings are warranted before undertaking large-scale applications to prevent increased domestic violence during stressful events, like infectious disease pandemics.