The perception of prana and its effect on psychological well being

Abstract

The present studywas conducted to sensitize people on existence of pranamaya kosha and study the experience. Pranayama is one of the most beneficial yogic practices and most talked about in yoga shastra. However, prana, the basis of life on which pranayama is based on, is not much studied. In the present study, an attempt was made to understand the effect of different feelings, sensations, experience and perception of pranic energy by respondents on their psychological well-being. Exploratory research design was used. The Participants for this study were adolescents and adults totalling to 811 with a mean age of 24.19 years. An open ended questionnaire was used and the results were analysed using Contingency Coefficient analysis and Chi Square tests. Results revealed that 99.5% of them felt the pranic energy in between their hands.61.1% of the respondents have expressed that the sensation of prana was a nice feeling in between their hands, only 26.7% have said that it was a relaxed feeling, and 28.6% said that they could understand more about their aura after feeling the prana in between their hands.98.4% were able to experience psychological changes after absorbing the air prana, and more than 60% of the respondents felt relaxed and experienced a happy feeling when they absorbed the air prana. In most of the effects females had higher levels of experience than male respondents. Implications of the study have been delineated.