Effect of Vethathiri Maharishi’s Simplified Kundalini Yoga on Stress among Adolescent Girls

The purpose of the present study was to find out the effect of Simplified Kundalini Yoga (SKY) practices on stress among adolescent girls. It was hypothesized that there would be a significant difference in stress level among adolescent girls due to the influence of SKY practices than the control group. For achieving the purpose of the study a total of 30 adolescent girls were selected at random as samples from Government Higher Secondary school, Thiruvallur District. Adolescent girls aged between 13 and 15 years were selected at randomly and divided into an Experimental group and a Control group with 15 subjects each. The Experimental group underwent Simplified Kundalini Yogic practices in a schedule of weekly five days from Monday to Friday for six weeks. The duration of practice time for Experimental group, for first two weeks was 45 minutes, duly increasing the practice time from 45 minutes to 60 minutes during 3rd and 4th weeks and from 60 minutes to 90 minutes during 5th and 6th weeks. SKY practices include Simplified Yogic Physical Exercises, Simplified Kayakalpa Yogic Exercises, Introspection and Meditation practices. Subjects of Control group were allowed to continue with their normal day to day life routine during the Experimental period and were not given any yogic practices. Pre-test and post-test were conducted before and after the training program for both the groups. Stress level was assessed with the help of Everly Girdano(1980) stress scale questionnaire which consists of statements with four options and the score ranges from 0 to 42. Lesser the score, lesser the stress level. Analyze of Co-Variance (ANCOVA) was used as a statistical tool to find out the significant differences. The statistical findings of the study revealed that the stress level of the students of Experimental group, the practitioners of Simplified Kundalini Yoga significantly decreased than the Control group. Hence the hypothesis was accepted at 0.05 level of confidence. The conclusion was that the SKY practices help to decrease stress level among adolescent girls.