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Effectiveness of yoga on attention of medical students: A prospective study



Introduction and Aim: Attention plays a huge role in cognitive processes like comprehension and reasoning. Lack of focused attention and easy distractibility adversely affects learning. It has been observed that the optimal attention span of medical students was about twenty minutes which is not quiet adequate. There is a need for improving attention of learners to sustain their ability to focus. Yoga addresses this need. Hence this study was taken up to assess the effectiveness of yoga on sustained and divided attention in Medical students.
Materials and Methods: This is a cross sectional, interventional study done on sixty healthy  volunteer Medical Students in the age group of 18-22 years. Thirty volunteer students formed the yoga group and thirty participated in the study but did not perform yoga. Attention tests namely, Digit vigilance test, Colour trail test 1 and 2 were administered for all participants. Yoga training was conducted by yoga expert with a curated yoga module for one hour daily evening for 30 hours. Same tests were repeated following intervention.
Results: A significant reduction in the completion timings of all attention tests were observed post intervention in the yoga group.  A reduction in the number of errors in DVT was also noted in the same group.
Conclusion: A pronounced improvement in sustained and focused attention along with enhanced attention control processing, was observed post intervention. This indicates that the yoga module has been effective in improving the mental focus of Medical Students.  Regular Yoga practice complements in improving attention in medical students thus facilitating their academic performance.

