Accepted Manuscript

Effect of a yoga based meditation technique on emotional regulation,

self-compassion and mindfulness in college students

Naresh Kumar Patel , L. Nivethitha , A. Mooventhan

PII: S1550-8307(18)30014-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.2018.06.008
Reference: JSCH 2316

To appear in: The End-to-end Journal

Received date: 21 January 2018

Revised date: 1 May 2018
Accepted date: 20 June 2018

Please cite this article as: Naresh Kumar Patel , L. Nivethitha , A. Mooventhan , Effect of a yoga
based meditation technique on emotional regulation, self-compassion and mindfulness in college stu-
dents, The End-to-end Journal (2018), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.2018.06.008

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Highlights:

 Practice of MEMT 45 minutes a day for 2 weeks improves emotional regulation,

positive affect, self compassion and mindfulness and reduces negative affect.

 All the subjects were actively participated in intervention

 No adverse effects were reported throughout the study period

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 Intervention is feasible, easy, safe and cost-effective

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Effect of a yoga based meditation technique on emotional regulation, self-compassion

and mindfulness in college students

Naresh Kumar Patel,1 L. Nivethitha,2 A. Mooventhan3

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1
MSc (Yoga Therapy), Department of Yoga, S-VYASA University, Bengaluru, Karnataka,

India

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2
Medical Officer, Department of Yoga, Center for Integrative Medicine and Research

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(CIMR), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, India

Senior Medical Officer, Department of Yoga, Center for Integrative Medicine and Research
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(CIMR), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, India
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Number of Tables: 01
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Number of Figures: 01

Word Counts: Abstract: 232; Manuscript: 1806

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Corresponding contributor:

Dr. A. Mooventhan,
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Senior Medical Officer, Department of Yoga, Center for Integrative Medicine and Research

(CIMR), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, India.

Mobile: +91 9844457496

E-mail: dr.mooventhan@gmail.com

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ABSTRACT

Background: Emotion regulation is often a challenge for the college students. Yoga practice

has been shown to reduce stress and improve mindfulness that is related to emotion

regulation. Mastering emotions technique (MEMT) is one of the yoga-based meditation

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techniques that is designed to control emotions among practitioners. However, to the best of

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our knowledge, there is no known study reporting its scientific evidence-based effects on

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emotion and its related variables. Thus, this study was conducted to evaluate the effect of

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MEMT on emotion regulation, self-compassion, and mindfulness in college students.

Materials and Methods: Seventy-two subjects with the age varied from 18 to 25 years were
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recruited from a residential college. All the subjects underwent MEMT for the duration of 45

minutes a day for a period of 2 weeks. Assessments such as Emotional Regulation

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Questionnaire (ERQ), The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), Self-
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Compassion Scale (SCS), and Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) were taken

before and after the intervention.

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Results: Results of this study showed a significant increase in the scores of cognitive
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reappraisal, positive affect, self-compassion, and MAAS along with a significant reduction in

the scores of negative affect, and expressive suppression after the practice of MEMT
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compared to its respective baseline.

Conclusions: Results of this study suggest that practice of MEMT is effective in improving

emotion regulation, positive affects, self-compassion, and mindfulness while in reducing

negative affects among college students.

Key-words: College students; Emotional regulation; Meditation; Mindfulness; Yoga

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BACKGROUND:

Emotion regulation is defined as “the extrinsic and intrinsic processes that are responsible for

monitoring, evaluating, and modifying emotional reactions, especially their intensive and

temporal features, to accomplish one‟s goals.” It is influenced by a range of systems

including neurophysiological, physical, cognitive, behavioural, and social systems. Research

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in the field of emotion regulation among adolescent is steadily increasing over the past

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decade.[1] Reappraisal and suppression are the two commonly used forms of emotion

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regulation. Reappraisal involves changing how we think about a situation in order to decrease

its emotional impact, while suppression involves inhibiting ongoing emotional expressive

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behaviour.[2] Emotion dysregulation leads to a variety of negative outcomes including

depression, self-injury, disordered eating, and drug and alcohol abuse.[1]

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Yoga is an ancient Indian science as well as the way of life, which includes the practice of

specific posture (asana), regulated breathing (pranayama) and meditation. [3] Mastering
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emotions technique (MEMT) is one of the meditation techniques, developed by Swami

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Vivekananda Yoga Research Foundation to achieve the goal of regulating the emotions,

positive health, willpower, concentration, good memory, and deep relaxation. In most of the
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existing meditation techniques, there will be a focus (concentration) on a particular point (i.e.
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on an object, light, god, goddess, mantra, symbol etc.). Whereas, in MEMT, the focus will be

on one‟s own mind, thought flow, different emotions and its feelings which will help to
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overcome emotional disturbance. Moreover, it is a simple method to get mastery over the

emotions through devotional bhajan and expressing deep emotions. [4] The practice of yoga

has been shown to produce a positive effect on emotion regulation of high school students.

Thus, many schools are integrating yoga into their curriculum to improve self-regulatory

skills like emotion regulation.[2] Though MEMT was developed to regulate the emotions, to

the best of our knowledge there is no known study reporting its effect on emotion regulation
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in students. Hence, the present study was conducted with the aim and objective to study the

effect of MEMT on emotion regulation in college students.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Subject:

Seventy-two healthy female volunteers with the age varied from 18 to 25 years were recruited

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from a residential college in Odisha, India, based on the following inclusion and exclusion

criteria. Healthy female subjects with the age of 18 years and above, who is willing to

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participate in the study, were included in the study. Subjects with the history of any systemic

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and mental illness, under regular medication for any disease, chronic smoking, chronic

alcoholism, during menstruation, pregnancy, lactation, and who had experience in practicing
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yoga or any type meditation techniques were excluded from the study. The study protocol

was approved by the institutional ethics committee of S-VYASA University, Bengaluru and a
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written informed consent was obtained from each subject.

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Study Design: A single group pre-test and post-test experimental design was used in this

study. All the subjects underwent MEMT for 2 weeks. Assessments were taken before and
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after the intervention.

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Assessment:
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Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ): The ERQ was developed by Gross JJ and John

OP in 2003 to measure the habitual use of 2 emotion regulation strategies: 1) Reappraisal and

2) Suppression. It is a 10-item scale designed to measure respondents‟ tendency to regulate

their emotions in two ways: (1) Cognitive Reappraisal and (2) Expressive Suppression.

Respondents answer each item on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly

disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).[5]

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The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS): The PANAS was developed by

Watson, Clark, and Tellegen. It consists of two 10-item scales that describe different feelings

and emotions for PA and NA, respectively. The 10 items for PA are attentive, interested,

alert, excited, enthusiastic, inspired, proud, determined, strong and active and the 10 item for

NA are distressed, upset, hostile, irritable, scared, afraid, ashamed, guilty nervous, and jittery.

Subjects were instructed to read each item and then mark the appropriate answer in the space

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next to that word to indicate to what extent they have felt like this in the past few hours.

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Response options ranged from 1-5 where, 1 = Very slightly or not at all; 2 = a little; 3 =

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moderately; 4 = quite a bit; 5 = extremely. The scores generated used to vary along the scale

of 10 – 50, with lower scores indicating low (positive or negative) affect and higher scores

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indicating high (positive or negative) affect. The validity and reliability of the PANAS have
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been tested.[6]

Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS): The MAAS is a 15-item single-dimension

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measure of trait mindfulness designed to assess a core characteristic of mindfulness, namely,

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a receptive state of mind in which attention, informed by a sensitive awareness of what is

occurring in the present, simply observes what is taking place. Here, the subject was asked to
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indicate how frequently or infrequently they currently have each experience and answer

according to what really reflects their experience rather than what they think as their
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experience should be. Response options ranged from 1-6 where, 1 = almost always; 2 = very
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frequently; 3 = somewhat frequently; 4 = somewhat infrequently; 5 = very infrequently; 6 =

almost never. Internal consistency levels (Cronbach‟s alphas) generally range from 0.80 to

0.90. The MAAS has demonstrated high test-retest reliability, discriminant and convergent

validity, known-groups validity, and criterion validity.[7]

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Self-Compassion Scale (SCS): The SCS was developed by Neff KD in 2003 to explicitly

represent the thoughts, emotions, and behaviours associated with the various components of

self-compassion. It consists of 26-items composed in six subscales: 1) Self-kindness, 2) Self-

judgment, 3) Common humanity, 4) Isolation, 5) Mindfulness, and 6) Over-identification.

Responses are given on a 5-point scale from Almost Never to Almost Always. Means are

calculated for each subscale, and a grand mean is calculated that represents an overall

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measure of self-compassion. A score of 1-2.5 indicates self-compassion, 2.5-3.5 indicates

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moderate self-compassion, and 3.5-5.0 indicates high self-compassion.[8] A Japanese version

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of the SCS has shown to have a good reliability and validity as a measure of self-

compassion.[9]

Intervention:
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All the subjects were advised to practice MEMT for the duration of 45 minutes a day for the
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period of 2 weeks. MEMT consists of 10 steps: 1) starting prayer, 2) Recognize thinking vs.

feeling, 3) Art of sublimation, 4) Invoke-intensify-diffuse, 5) Pairs of opposites, 6) Actions

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towards of different emotions, 7) Death experience, 8) Silence, 9) Resolve and 10) Closing

prayer. The intervention was given in the morning (between 8:00 am and 9:30 am) in a
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residential college in Odisha, India by an institutionally qualified and trained yoga therapist.
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Subjects were not advised any home based practice during the study period. A detail of the

intervention is given in table 1.[4]

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Data Analysis:

Data were checked for normality using Kolmogorov-Smirnov. Statistical analysis was

performed using Wilcoxon signed ranks test with the use of Statistical Package for the Social

Sciences (SPSS) for Windows, Version 16.0. Chicago, SPSS Inc. p <0.05 was considered as

significant.

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RESULT:

Of 100 subjects, 28 subjects did not fulfil the criteria and thus not included in the study.

Recruited 72 subjects were undergone 2 weeks of MEMT practice and completed the study.

Results of this study showed a significant increase in the cognitive reappraisal of ERQ,

positive affect of PANAS, MAAS, and self-compassion scores; and a significant reduction in

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the expressive suppression of ERQ, and negative affect of PANAS scores after the practice of

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MEMT compared to its baseline (Figure 1).

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DISCUSSION:

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The emotional imbalance is quite common and challenging in college students. Evidence

suggests that yoga practice improve emotion regulation among school students. [1] MEMT is a
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yoga-based meditation technique developed to regulate the emotions among the regular

practitioners. However, there is a lack of scientific evidence reporting the effect of MEMT on
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emotional regulation in college students. Hence, the present study was conducted to evaluate

the effect of MEMT on emotional regulation in college going students.

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Results of this study showed a significant reduction in the expressive suppression and a
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significant increase in the cognitive reappraisal of ERQ. Suppression and reappraisal are the
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two different forms of emotion regulation. Suppression requires self-monitoring and self-

corrective action throughout an emotional event. Such monitoring requires a continual outlay
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of cognitive resources, reducing the resources available for processing events so that they can

later be remembered. Reappraisal, by contrast, is evoked early on in the emotion-generative

process. Inexpressive individuals often are more physiologically reactive than expressive

individuals. Inexpressive individuals suppress their emotions, which leads to increased

physiological responding. Suppression has reported to decreases positive emotional

experience and increase sympathetic activation of the cardiovascular and electro-dermal

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systems while reappraisal has reported to decrease negative emotional experience.[2] Hence,

the results of this study suggest that 2 weeks practice of MEMT might be useful in improving

emotional regulation among the college students.

In PANAS, the positive affect (PA) represents the extent to which an individual experiences

pleasurable engagement and the negative affect (NA) represents the extent to which an

individual experiences un-pleasurable engagement with the environment. [6] The high NA

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scores reflect „subjective distress and low NA scores reflect „a state of calmness and

serenity.[11] Hence, in this study, a significant increase in PA score along with a significant

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reduction in NA score after 2 weeks of MEMT suggests that it is an effective way of

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improving a state of calmness and serenity among the college going students that might be

useful for the prevention of psychological and psychosomatic disorders.[10]

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Mindfulness is defined as paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present
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moment, and non-judgmentally. MAAS positively correlated with various measures of well-

being like life satisfaction, optimism, and self-esteem and negatively correlated with
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neuroticism,[11] (a stable temperament that is one of the vulnerable factors for depression), [12]

depression, anxiety, and unpleasant affect. [11] Hence, improvement in the MASS score
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followed by the 2 weeks of MEMT is an effective method of preventing the development of

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anxiety, depression and its related disorders along with improving the attention, optimism,

and self-esteem in college students. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study
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reporting the effect of MEMT on emotional regulation of college students. The practice of

MEMT was feasible, acceptable and none of the subjects reported any adverse effect

throughout the study period. Hence, this study reports a simple, low-cost intervention that can

be practiced by anyone. However, there are various limitations in the study that includes no

prior sample size calculation based on any previous study. Since it was a pre-post design, we

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did not have a control group for the comparison. Assessments were based on the subjective

methods and not on any objective measures. Hence, further study (randomized controlled

trial) is required with larger sample size and objective variables for the better understanding.

CONCLUSION:

Results of this study suggest that practice of MEMT is effective in improving emotional

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regulation, positive affects, self-compassion, and mindfulness while in reducing negative

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affects among college students.

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SOURCE OF FUNDING: Nil

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: None declared

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REFERENCES:
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1. Daly LA, Haden SC, Hagins M, Papouchis N, Ramirez PM. Yoga and Emotion
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Regulation in High School Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Evid Based

Complement Alternat Med. 2015;2015:794928.

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2. Gross JJ. Emotion regulation: affective, cognitive, and social consequences.

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Psychophysiology. 2002;39(3):281-91.

3. Mooventhan A, Khode V. Effect of Bhramari pranayama and OM chanting on

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pulmonary function in healthy individuals: A prospective randomized control trial. Int

J Yoga. 2014;7:104-10.

4. Nagarathna R, Nagendra HR. Yoga for Cancer. 3rd edition. Bangalore, Swami

Vivekananda Yoga Prakashana, 2014.

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5. Gross JJ, John OP. Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes:

Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. J PersSoc Psychol.

2003;85(2):348-62.

6. Crawford JR, Henry JD. The positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS):

construct validity, measurement properties and normative data in a large non-clinical

sample. Br J ClinPsychol 2004;43(Pt 3):245-65.

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7. Esther I. de Bruin, Bonne J. H. Zijlstra, Eva van de Weijer-Bergsma, Susan M.

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Bögels. The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale for Adolescents (MAAS-A):

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Psychometric Properties in a Dutch Sample. Mindfulness 2011;2:201-11.

8. Neff KD. Development and validation of a scale to measure self-compassion. Self and

Identity. 2003;2:223-50. US
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9. Arimitsu K. Development and validation of the Japanese version of the Self-

Compassion Scale. Shinrigaku Kenkyu. 2014;85:50-9.

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10. Merz EL, Malcarne VL, Roesch SC, Ko CM, Emerson M, Roma VG, et al.

Psychometric properties of Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) original

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and short forms in an African American community sample. J Affect Disord

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2013;151:942-9.

11. De Bruin EI, Zijlstra BJ, van de Weijer-Bergsma E, Bögels SM. The mindful
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attention awareness scale for adolescents (MAAS-A): Psychometric properties in a

Dutch sample. Mindfulness (N Y) 2011;2:201-11.

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12. Barnhofer T, Duggan DS, Griffith JW. Dispositional mindfulness moderates the

relation between neuroticism and depressive symptoms. Pers Individ Dif

2011;51:958-62.

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Figure 1: Baseline and post-test assessment scores of the study group (n=72)

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Baseline assessment scores Post-test assessment scores

4.31
5.93

4.31
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4.56
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4.52
4.03
3.06 ¶
3.29 3 3.29
3.2
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1.75
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Cognitive Reappraisal Expressive Suppression Positive Affect Negative Affect SCS MAAS

Emotion Regulation Questionnaire The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule

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Note: ¶ = p value <0.01; * = p value <0.001 (Wilcoxon signed ranks test). SCS = Self-compassion scale; MAAS = Mindful attention awareness

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scale.

Table 1: A detail of the intervention given for the study group (n = 72).
Sl. No. Steps of Mastering Emotions Technique (MEMT)
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(Minutes)
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1 Opening prayer 2

2 Recognize thinking vs. feeling 3

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 Think and feel that you are neither mind nor your emotion.

 Observe the thought flow of mind.

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 Recognize your thought and emotion and feel it. Do not try to suppress or

stop them.
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 Whenever you feel some emotions, they increase the heart rate, breath rate

and speed of thoughts.

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 To relieve the same emotion, take a deep breathing, and let everything go.

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 Think and feel that everything has passed and try to be at present.

 Feel free and light. Relax Completely.

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3 Art of sublimation 5

 Sublimation is the art of slowing down your reactions.

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 Be aware of thoughts and the reaction to them. Do not try to suppress or stop

them.

 Slow down the breathing through which slow down (relax) the mind.
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 Think that you can slow down the thoughts and emotions as slow down the

breathing.
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 Let go the thoughts and emotions and relax.

4 Invoke-intensify-diffuse by the singing the bhajan (devotional song) 8

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5 Feeling of pairs of opposites (two extreme opposite experiences from past)

a) Heat and cold 2

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b) Stretch and relax 2

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c) Constrict and expand
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d) Happiness and sorrow

e) Mäna and apamäna 2

f) Punya and päpa

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2

6 Actions towards of difference emotions

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a) Maitré (Friendship) towards suùkha (happy) 1

b) Karuëä(Mercy) towards duùkha (unhappy)

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c) Mudita (gladness) towards pünya (good)
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d) Upekñä (Indifference) towards apünya(Evil) 1

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7 Death experience in savasana (Corpse pose) 5

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 Lie down in savasana and relax the body on the floor.

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 Be aware that the fear is the root cause of all emotions.

 Breath as slow as possible, and feel that there is no breath

 Try to feel the silence state of mind and realise that the physical death is not

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a real death.

Remove the fear of death, which is the root cause of emotions.

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8 Silence 2

 Happiness is silence; bliss is silence; silence will lead to pure consciousness.

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 Now feel the silence and the bliss, the infinite silence like the blue sky.

 Diffuse into the expansion and blissful awareness of silence.

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 Feel that you are peaceful and tranquillity.

 Feel the wave of resonance and diffuse them.

 Dwell in silence as long as possible.

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9 Resolve: 2
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 From the depth of silence, make some short positive statements like “I am a

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healthy person; I am a part of divinity; I am away from all thoughts and

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emotions; I am always happy and peaceful” etc.

 Repeated the resolve nine times and allow it to diffuse with the silence and

relax completely.

10 Closing prayer

Total duration
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45
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