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 exposed
to ‘high’ academic stress. Stress, in turn, affects sleep quality. Deterioration in sleep quality adversely
affects overall health. Yogic breathing exercise i.e., ‘Pranayama’ practice is an easy yet effective way to
maintain 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. Due
to lack of specific scientific evidence to support these benefits from Bhramari Pranayama, this study was
undertaken to evaluate the effect of Bhramari Pranayama practice on sleep quality and perceived stress in
school students.
Objectives: To evaluate the effect of short-term (6 weeks) practice of Bhramari Pranayama on Sleep Quality
and Perceived Stress in school students.
Methodology: After obtaining Ethical clearance, 60 school students of class X were randomly selected for
the study. Assent from participants and written informed consent from their parents were obtained. After
history-taking and general physical examination, ‘baseline’ data including assessment of Sleep quality and
Perceived stress were obtained using the PSQI (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) and PSS (Perceived Stress
Scale) questionnaires respectively. Thereafter, Bhramari Pranayama was practiced by the students for 6
weeks. Finally, at the end of 6 weeks sleep quality and perceived stress were re-assessed using the above
questionnaires. Pre- and post- Bhramari pranayama data were compared and analysed using descriptive
statistics 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 & a
significant reduction in Perceived stress (p-value<0.05).
Conclusion: Hence, just a few weeks practice of Bhramari Pranayama significantly improves sleep quality
and reduces perceived stress.