Combined Meditation, Yoga, and Ethical Education have Additive Effects on Well-Being
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“When practiced together, yoga and meditation strengthen the connection between mind and body, thereby improving overall fitness and wellbeing.” – Peaceful Dragon
Mindfulness training has been shown to improve health and well-being in healthy individuals and those with medical and psychiatric conditions, Similarly, yoga practice has been shown to improve health and well-being in healthy individuals and those with medical and psychiatric conditions. Meditation practice is known to decrease the psychological and physical responses to stress. Similarly, yoga practice has been shown to decrease the psychological and physical responses to stress. But there has been little research of the impact of combining meditation and yoga practices.
In today’s Research News article “Differential Effects of Ethical Education, Physical Hatha Yoga, and Mantra Meditation on Well-Being and Stress in Healthy Participants-An Experimental Single-Case Study.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8375679/ ) Matko and colleagues recruited healthy adult participants who did not practice meditation or yoga and randomly assigned them to one of 4 treatment conditions once a week for 8 weeks; mantra meditation alone, mantra meditation plus physical yoga, mantra meditation plus ethical education, and mantra meditation plus physical yoga and ethical education. They were also instructed to practice daily at home. They were measured weekly before and after training and 8 weeks and 12 months later for well-being, perceived stress, and life satisfaction and a daily home practice questionnaire.
They found that all conditions produced significant improvements in well-being, but the combined treatments produced greater improvements than mantra meditation alone with those that contained ethical education having the greatest benefits. All conditions produced equivalent significant increases in life satisfaction.
The results suggest that engaging in mindfulness practices produce lasting improvements in the well-being and life satisfaction of the participants. This improved well-being and life satisfaction produced by mindfulness practices have been well documented in prior research studies. In addition, the findings suggest that adding yoga and especially ethical education to meditation amplifies the improvements in well-being. Ethical education in the present study included training and discussion of non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, self-restraint, non-hoarding, cleanliness, contentment, and transcendence. This appeared to have an additive effect on well-being.
There was, however, a confounding variable which is the duration of practice. Whereas the weekly trainings for mantra meditation practice took 60 minutes, mantra meditation plus physical yoga took 105 minutes, mantra meditation plus ethical education took 135 minutes, and mantra meditation plus physical yoga and ethical education took 180 minutes. In addition, each practice was practiced daily for 20 minutes with the combined conditions being practiced for 40 and 60 minutes respectively. So, the more practice the greater the improvement in well-being. Future research needs to fix the amount of practice so that the total is the same for all conditions and their combinations.
So, combined meditation, yoga, and ethical education have additive effects on well-being.
“The beauty of Yoga and Meditation, when they are merged together, helps one relish each and every moment of life. There is no place for stress and anxiety in a mind that enjoys Yoga. While Yoga poses promote blood circulation in the brain, Meditation makes sure it stays calm and composed to feel complete serenity.” – Manmohan Singhis
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Matko, K., Sedlmeier, P., & Bringmann, H. C. (2021). Differential Effects of Ethical Education, Physical Hatha Yoga, and Mantra Meditation on Well-Being and Stress in Healthy Participants-An Experimental Single-Case Study. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 672301. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.672301
Abstract
Traditionally, yoga is a multicomponent practice consisting of postures, breathing techniques, meditation, mantras, and ethics. To date, only a few studies have tried to dismantle the effects of each of these components and their combinations. To fill this gap, we examined the incremental effects of ethical education and physical Hatha yoga on mantra meditation using a single-case multiple-baseline design. This study was part of a project evaluating the new mind–body program Meditation-Based Lifestyle Modification. Fifty-seven healthy participants with no regular yoga or meditation practice were randomly assigned to three baselines (7, 14, and 21 days) and four conditions using a random number generator. The conditions were mantra meditation alone (MA), meditation plus physical yoga (MY), meditation plus ethical education (ME), and meditation plus yoga and ethical education (MYE). All the interventions lasted for 8 weeks and were run consecutively according to baseline length. During the baseline and treatment phases, participants received daily questionnaires measuring their well-being (WHO-5 Well-Being Index), stress (Perceived Stress Scale), and subjective experiences. Forty-two participants completed the treatment and were entered in the analyses. We analyzed our data using visual inspection, effect size estimation (Tau-U), and multilevel modeling. Almost all participants showed a longitudinal increase in well-being. Regarding between-group differences, participants who received ethical education exhibited the largest increases in well-being (Tau-U = 0.30/0.23 for ME/MYE), followed by participants in the MY condition (Tau-U = 0.12). Conversely, participants in the MA condition showed no change (Tau-U = 0.07). There was a tendency for the combined treatments to decrease stress. This tendency was strongest in the MY condition (Tau-U = –0.40) and reversed in the MA condition (Tau-U = 0.17). These results emphasize the incremental and differential effects of practicing meditation in combination with other practices from the eight-fold yoga path. This approach is valuable for better understanding the multifaceted practice of yoga.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8375679/