1Assistant Professor, Dept. of Physiology, Rajarajeswari Medical College & Hospital, Bengaluru
2Associate Professor, Dept. of Physiology, Rajarajeswari Medical College & Hospital, Bengaluru
Lifestyle diseases are increasing at a tremendous rate, especially in developing countries. Physical inactivity has been majorly blamed for the rise in these disorders, due to automation and advancement in the technology. Physical activity was a part of our routine lifestyle in the olden days. Physical activity like aerobic exercises & yoga have proved to be highly beneficial. Surya-namaskar, a form of yogic practice has been utilised to very small extent. Hence, we proposed to compare the effect of surya-namaskar with aerobic exercise in the form of spot jogging on the Cardio vascular & Heart rate variability in young healthy subjects.
To evaluate the individual effect of spot jogging and surya-namaskar of similar duration on cardiac parameters and Heart rate variability of healthy subjects and to compare the effects of spot jogging and suryanamaskar with each other.
The subjects were randomly divided into Group I-surya-namaskar group (n=20) and Group II-spot jogging group (n=20). Group I performed surya-namaskar and Group II performed spot jogging (5 min/day for 6 weeks duration). Cardiovascular and Heart rate variability (HRV) parameters (SBP, DBP, heart rate(HR), VLF, LF, HF and LF/HF ratio) were recorded before and after six weeks of training in each group.
The results showed that SBP, DBP, HR decreased significantly in both surya-namaskar and spot jogging group. LF values decreased significantly in spot jogging group, while a statistically significant increase in HF values was found in surya-namaskar group. LF/HF values decreased significantly in both the groups. On comparing surya-namaskar and spot jogging groups, it was found that difference between the mean values (pre and post) among the two groups was statistically significantly higher for HF component in surya-namaskar group.
Surya-namaskar & spot jogging are found to be equally beneficial in improving the cardiac & autonomic parameters; whereas Surya-namaskar showed better improvement towards parasympathetic dominance.
Surya-namaskar, spot jogging, HRV
