Background: Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline that began in India. Since its inception, around the 5th or 6th century BC, yoga has attained lot of importance as far as the physical and mental health of a common man is concerned. The most common parameter to assess the physical fitness is cardiovascular function usually blood pressure; more the stress, high the blood pressure. The young generation is facing more stress in present scenario in all walks of life and medical students are not exceptions. Objective: To study the effect of short-term yogic practices on blood pressure in young healthy medical students. Methodology: The study was conducted on 36 healthy medical students (21 males and 15 females) in the age group of 17-21 years in the Department of Physiology, M.G.M. Medical College, and Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital, Indore. An informed consent was taken after fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Blood pressure was measured by using mercury sphygmomanometer before the participants started yoga practices. The participants performed yoga practices in the morning for one hour daily, six days in a week, for four weeks under the guidance of yoga teacher. The yoga practices consisted of Prayer, Omkar recitation, asana, Pranayama, and breathing exercises. Blood pressure was again measured after the completion of yoga session. Data thus collected compiled, tabulated, and analyzed statistically by using students’‘t’ test. Observation and Result: There was significant reduction in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. The reduction in systolic blood pressure was more marked in males (p value 0.006) while reduction in diastolic blood pressure was more marked in females (p value 0.015). Conclusion: On the basis of these results we can conclude that yogic practices lowers blood pressure; which can be useful not only therapeutically but also as a preventive measure.

Keywords: Yoga; Blood Pressure; Syphygmomanometer; Students ‘t’ Test.