EFFECT OF YOGIC EXERCISE AND PHYSICAL EXERCISE ON PHYSICAL HEALTH AND MENTAL HEALTH

The Present study includes two independent groups of subjects. Sixty healthy volunteers were randomly selected and were assigned two groups of 30 subjects each. They were in the age range of 30-45 years. First group was the Yoga group which consisted of 17 males and13 females. The second group was the physical exercise group which consisted of 20 males and 10 females. After these subjects were randomly assigned to these two groups, Yoga group joined on three months yoga training course at Yoga Sikshasansthan. They attended yoga classes regularly and practiced yoga under guidance of qualified yoga teachers. The subjects in the physical exercise group started practicing brisk walk regularly in the morning hours. Initially base line recordings of four physiological parameters mainly systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, pulse rate, body weight were recorded individually for all the subjects in both Yoga group and physical exercise group. Later their mental health assessment was made by administering general health questionnaire. In conclusion it may be said that since both physical exercise group and yoga training group comprised of very healthy subjects, the impact of training is not glaring, including a control group and a clinical group such as obese or hypertension would certainly bring about subtle differences in the two systems. Regarding the psychological variables both yoga and physical exercise group showed significant change except in the case of somatic symptoms. In addition to these variables of assessment of subjective well being is also made on both the group before and after training, would give us an opportunity to compare the merits of these two systems.