Coinciding with ‘World Gratitude Day’ Heartfulness Institute releases study that shows the direct impact of meditation on gratitude
The study, authored by Dr Raja Amarnath G, Dr Prabhakar Akurathi, Chitra Rajan, Aiswarya Ravichandran, Dr Ravindra Deshpande, Varalakshmi A., Dr Ved Prakash Vyas and Rani Vijayan, compared the gratitude levels of Heartfulness meditators with non-meditators following a comprehensive survey, to reach this conclusion.
The researchers were from Sree Balaji Medical College & Hospital and Apollo Hospital, Chennai; NRI Medical College, Chinakakani, Andhra Pradesh; CIPACA Institute of Research, Chennai; Wake Forest School of Medicine, North Carolina, USA; and Govt. Dhanwantri Ayurvedic Medical College, Ujjain.
Commenting on the studies, Kamlesh Patel, the Guide of Heartfulness, said, “The best attitude is one of love and gratitude, which develops over time as a result of our ever-deepening contact with the Source within. Heartfulness Meditation with yogic Transmission brings this about very quickly.”
The study involved a cross-sectional survey conducted online between 1 and 30 November 2018. Participants consisted of 1,746 Heartfulness meditators and 1,159 non-meditators, who responded to a questionnaire using a 7-point Likert scale rated from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The data were grouped according to the demographic, social and health information reported, such as gender, age, marital status, occupation, nature of work, health, place of residence and family system. See Tables 1 and 2.
The assimilated data were then entered in the statistical package of social science version 21 and analysed using inferential and descriptive statistics, percentages and frequencies. Among all groups the analysis showed higher gratitude among meditators as compared to non-meditators.
In both male and female populations, meditators showed a higher expression of gratitude. Previous studies suggest that men are less likely to feel and express gratitude than women. But our research shows that Heartfulness Meditation can be a suitable tool to enable men to develop a grateful disposition. This difference was also noted in other subsets based on age group, marital status, type of family, place of residence, occupation, chronic illness etc.
Heartfulness Meditation, which is derived from the age-old system of Raja Yoga, offers a technique to tune a person’s mind to the heart and causes a paradigm shift in how they perceive life. Gratitude is a heart-based quality and positively influences physical, psychological and mental health. It is associated with life satisfaction and happiness. Practising Heartfulness Meditation facilitates gentle and natural regulation of the mind and mastery of the emotions, so that gratitude becomes easy and natural.
About Heartfulness Meditation:
Heartfulness Meditation is a set of practices for self-development that help us find inner calm and stillness in our fast-paced world. The easily adopted practices are appropriate for people from all walks of life, cultures, religious beliefs, and economic and educational levels, over the age of 15.
Heartfulness (www.heartfulness.org) is a Raja Yoga system of meditation, also known as ‘Sahaj Marg’. It originated at the turn of the twentieth century and today millions of practitioners are benefiting from it. Ongoing Heartfulness Meditation training can be found at thousands of schools and colleges, and over 100,000 professionals are meditating in corporations, non-governmental and government bodies worldwide. More than 5,000 Heartfulness Centres are supported by many thousands of certified volunteer trainers in 130 countries.
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