Effect of Short-Term Practice of Bhramari Pranayama on Sleep Quality and Perceived Stress in School Students

Abstract

Background: In today’s highly-competitive era of modern education, students are constantly exposedto ‘high’ academic stress. Stress, in turn, affects sleep quality. Deterioration in sleep quality adverselyaffects overall health. Yogic breathing exercise i.e., ‘Pranayama’ practice is an easy yet effective way tomaintain sound physical and mental health. Traditional yogic literatures particularly recommend ‘Bhramari’Pranayama (the ‘Humming Bee’ breath) for effectively reducing stress and improving quality of sleep. Dueto lack of specific scientific evidence to support these benefits from Bhramari Pranayama, this study wasundertaken to evaluate the effect of Bhramari Pranayama practice on sleep quality and perceived stress inschool students.Objectives: To evaluate the effect of short-term (6 weeks) practice of Bhramari Pranayama on Sleep Qualityand Perceived Stress in school students.Methodology: After obtaining Ethical clearance, 60 school students of class X were randomly selected forthe study. Assent from participants and written informed consent from their parents were obtained. Afterhistory-taking and general physical examination, ‘baseline’ data including assessment of Sleep quality andPerceived stress were obtained using the PSQI (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) and PSS (Perceived StressScale) questionnaires respectively. Thereafter, Bhramari Pranayama was practiced by the students for 6weeks. Finally, at the end of 6 weeks sleep quality and perceived stress were re-assessed using the abovequestionnaires. Pre- and post- Bhramari pranayama data were compared and analysed using descriptivestatistics and Student’s t-test; p-value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant.Results: Post Bhramari Pranayama practice, there was significant improvement in Sleep quality & asignificant reduction in Perceived stress (p-value<0.05).Conclusion: Hence, just a few weeks practice of Bhramari Pranayama significantly improves sleep qualityand reduces perceived stress.