Impact of sahaja yoga meditation on parents and their children

Dr Ramesh Manocha describes the benifits of the parents and children who engaged Sahaja Yoga Meditation as a part of a study carried out by Dr Manocha.

The Sahaja Yoga Meditation (SYM) intervention was designed as a family treatment program, which was expected to impact on parents as well as children. At the end of the program, 92% of parents agreed that the program had been personally beneficial. The overall benefit was rated at 4 (M = 3.91, SD = 0.92) on a 1 (low) to 5 (high) scale. Specific benefits rated highly (over 3 on a 5-point scale) were “more able to manage stress” (M = 3.79, SD = 0.93), “less stressed” (M = 3.67, SD = 0.96), “happier” (M = 3.45, SD = 1.01), “more able to manage anger” (M = 3.37, SD = 1.25), and “less angry” (M = 3.29, SD = 1.23).

Parents were also asked to rate the extent to which they felt that SYM had benefited the relationship with their children. Mean scores on a 5-point scale showed a consistent pattern of benefit, specifically for “more open communication” (M = 3.83, SD = 0.72), “less exhausting” (M = 3.50, SD = 0.91), “more able to manage conflict” (M = 3.42, SD = 0.67), and “less conflict” (M = 3.33, SD = 0.78). A number of parents commented that participating in the program had made a positive change to their relationship with their child. A father mentioned his pleasure at being able to laugh with his son for the first time in years. One mother wrote: “I truly understand how meditating and becoming more relaxed have helped my son 150% because he feeds off a calmer mum.” Parents also said they had used meditation at home to help deal with difficult situations. One mother commented: “I’m now able to get [my child] to calm down (using meditation). He is then able to focus and carry on with his day.” Another wrote about how she dealt with a difficult time: “We had a good meditation and he went off to bed quite calm and relaxed and went straight to sleep.”