Effects of Isha Hatha Yoga on Core Stability and Standing Balance

Context • The coexistence of affective disorders, especially anxiety and depression, with medical illness is a topic of considerable clinical and research interest. Complementary biofield modalities are therapies that involve touch or placement of the hands in or through biofields. Spiritual healing, or Spiritist passe (SP), is a kind of laying on of hands (LOH), and therefore is a biofield therapy. Objective • The current study intended to evaluate the effects of SP on psychological parameters such as anxiety and depression and on the perceptions of muscle tension and wellness as well as physiological parameters, such as pain intensity, heart rate (HR), and oxygen saturation (SpO2). Design • This study was a randomized, controlled trial. Setting • The study took place at the medical clinic of the clinical hospital of the Federal University of Triângulo Mineiro (HC/UFTM) in Uberaba, Brazil. Participants • The participants were patients aged ≥18 y who had been hospitalized in the clinic between August 2014 and June 2015. Intervention • Participants in the no-SP and SP groups were instructed to direct their thoughts to Jesus with wishes to heal during the intervention. In the SP group, the patients underwent application of the SP, and in the no-SP group, workers, students, or volunteers at the Clinical Hospital of Uberaba practiced a kind of LOH in a nonspiritual therapy with intention to healing emitting sincere wishes of improvement to the patients by thought. All procedures in those groups were carried out during a 10-min period on 3 consecutive days. In the control group, the patients lay for 10 min during the same periods on the 3 days, with no intervention occurring. Outcome Measures • The study evaluated depression and anxiety using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HAD) scale as well as patients' pain using a visual analog scale (VAS). The study also measured their perceptions of muscle tension and wellness and their physiological parameters: HR and SpO2. Results • Seventy-two patients consented to participate in the study. The SP group showed statistically significant reductions in anxiety (P < .001) and depression (P = .008) between baseline and postintervention, with perceptions of muscle tension significantly decreasing on day 1 (D1) and day 3 (D3) of the study (both < .001) after the interventions and wellness significantly increasing between baseline and postintervention (P = .001) and when compared with the control and no-SP groups, with P = .001. The SP group presented the smallest numbers for HR after the interventions, but no significant differences were found between groups for HR, SpO2, and pain on the VAS. Conclusions • The current research team has concluded that the SP was effective in promoting a state of muscle relaxation, reducing anxiety and depression, decreasing muscle tension, and, consequently, raising the perceptions of wellness in hospitalized patients.