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IRJBM – (www.irjbm.org ) Volume No – VIII, July – 2015, Issue – 9 Page 59
© Global Wisdom Research Publications – All Rights Reserved.
Effect of Selected Yogasanas, Pranayama and Meditation on Creativity of
Entrepreneurs
K.Yogalakshmi
Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Annamalai University
Annamalai Nagar – 608 001, Tamilnadu, India
G.Latha
Associate Professor of Business Administration, Annamalai University
Annamalai Nagar – 608 001, Tamilnadu, India.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of the study was to find out the effects of selected yogasanas, pranayama and meditation
on creativity of entrepreneurs. Creativity is a mental and social process involving the generation of
new ideas or concepts or new association of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts.
Brolin,(1992) summarized that the creative person can have certain characteristics such as strong
motivation, endurance, intellectual curiosity, deep commitment, independence in thought and action
,strong desire for self-realisation, strong sense of self, strong self-confidence, openness to impressions
from within and without, attracted to complexity and obscurity, high sensitivity, high capacity for
emotional involvement in their investigations. An entrepreneur is in need of all these characteristics. It
implies that when creativity is enhanced then the abilities of entrepreneurs also gets developed and
sharpened. Allyson Edgar(2013) brings out that yoga has a positive effect on creativity. To achieve
the purpose of this study forty entrepreneurs were selected from Chidambaram town of cuddalore
district, Tamilnadu, at random and their age ranges from 30 to 65 years and all of them are health and
normal. They are divided into two groups and designed as control group(entrepreneurs not practicing
yoga) and treatment group(entrepreneurs practicing yoga) twenty entrepreneurs each. The treatment
group underwent a twelve weeks of yogasanas, pranayama and meditation training. The control group
was restricted from any form of training intervention. The primary data was collected through a well
structured questionnaire before the training period and after the training completion. The collected data
was analyzed using analysis of variance (ANCOVA). The results of the study showed that yoga
training can be a effective training intervention to enhance creativity of entrepreneurs.
Keywords: creativity, yoga training, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs
Introduction
India has a rich tradition of yogic practices .yoga is an art of life. It is a science of life; it is a kind of
exercise to attain both physical and psychological growth. It brings about a holistic development in
human beings.The word yoga is related to the English word yoke. Yoga is the union of body, mind,
and spirit—the union of your individuality with the divine intelligence that orchestrates the universe.
Yoga is a state of being in which the elements and forces that comprise the biological organism are in
harmonious interaction with the elements of the cosmos. Established in this state, an individual will
experience enhanced emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being. There is a spontaneous
blossoming of intuition, insight, imagination, creativity, meaning, and purpose. It is the science of
controlling the mind which is responsible for one’s action. Once a person controls his mind and his
five senses he will be free of all distractions and hence make him more creative and productive. Yoga
is a boon from our ancestors. The practice of yogasanas improves general physical and mental health.
Yoga improves emotional competency, spiritual competency, positive attitude and creative thinking..
Brolin,(1992) summarized that the creative person can have certain characteristics such as strong
motivation, endurance, intellectual curiosity, deep commitment, independence in thought and action
,strong desire for self-realisation, strong sense of self, strong self-confidence, openness to impressions
IRJBM – (www.irjbm.org ) Volume No – VIII, July – 2015, Issue – 9 Page 60
© Global Wisdom Research Publications – All Rights Reserved.
from within and without, attracted to complexity and obscurity, high sensitivity, high capacity for
emotional involvement in their investigations. An entrepreneur is in need of all these characteristics. It
implies that when creativity is enhanced then the abilities of entrepreneurs also gets developed and
sharpened. Brain cells creates ideas. These cells are oxygenated by yoga. Thus yoga influences the
creativity of entrepreneurs.
Creativity Development through Yoga Training
Yoga, which is a way of life, is characterized by balance, health, harmony and bliss(Nagendram &
nagarathna.1997). For the restless mind, it gives solace (Brena,1975). For the sick, it is a boon(Grade.
1975). Some use it for developing memory, intelligence and creativity(Swami sarasvathy,1975).
Linking Creativity and Yoga
There is a scientific link between creativity process of brain and yoga. The brains of those who got a
flash of creative insight, by contrast, prepared by automatically shutting down activity in the visual
cortex for an instant — the equivalent of closing your eyes to block out distractions so that you can
concentrate better. In other sense the brain was cutting out other sensory input and boosting the signal-
to-noise ratio” to retrieve the answer from the subconscious Cutting out other sensory input" is the
same as the yoga concept of pratyahara (the fifth limb of yoga). In pratyahara, the mind is shut off
from any influence by the five senses. A couple of popular techniques to achieve this state of mind are
– yoga nidra (yogic deep relaxation) and breath awareness while breathing deeply. creativity not only
involves coming up with something new, but also with shutting down the brain’s habitual response, or
letting go of conventional solutions. Human ego likes to feed on samskaras and drive the mind crazy in
the process. These control our brain’s habitual responses which lead to conventional responses. The
practice of yoga keep the samaskaras under check .
Creative connections often occur when people are most peaceful — relaxing under a tree, like Isaac
Newton, or in a dream state, like Coleridge when he thought up “Kubla Khan.” This is replicated in
yoga as attaining a state of peace and tranquility of the mind is the prime objective of yoga practice. In
Yoga Sutras, the last three limbs of concentration, meditation and total absorption are provided as
means of achieving stillness of the mind. When the mind becomes still, the intuitive wisdom shines
through since practicioner are not driven by the ego (habitual responses) any more. In that state
humans are able to "see" things clearly as they are, not as their ego projects them to be. In sutras
(chapter 2) 2.26 and 2.27, Patanjali states that by practicing the 8 limbs of yoga one can achieve
discriminative knowledge which leads to the highest state of intuitive wisdom. Once individuals are in
that state, our creativity will find its highest level of expression.(Patricia cohen & subhash.2010)
Review of Literature
Allyson edgar(2013) studied whether meditation will generally enhance participants feelings of
creativity. He analysed that even if it doesn’t enhance creativity for everyone it will at least be a
positive experience. In this study he asked participants to meditate before engaging in a creative
activity. After performing the meditation and creative activity, participants reported how they felt in an
online survey. the results of his study revealed that there is a positive effect of meditation on creativity.
Ghanshyam Singh Thakur et.al designed a study to compare the effect of three different integrated
yoga modules on creativity among 296 school children aged between 13 to 17 years. They were
randomly allocated to three groups after stratifying for sex. The groups are CV (m-62,f-36), IQ (m-
63,f-28), PS (m-77,f-30). Each group is prescribed with a specific yoga module for duration of 10 days
in a residential set up. Creativity was assessed using intellect model of J.P. Guilford (1988) on
mathematical equation creation. This test measures two aspects of creativity namely fluency and
flexibility. The assessments were taken first day and last day. Data analyses were done using student's
paired 't' test. Between-group comparison was done by ANOVA to find group differences, followed by
post-hoc Tukey analysis. Results showed significant (p<0.05) improvement in fluency (CV=27.46%,
IQ=24.84%, PS= 11.01%) and flexibility (CV=20.73%, IQ=22.31% PS= 11.87%) in all groups.
IRJBM – (www.irjbm.org ) Volume No – VIII, July – 2015, Issue – 9 Page 61
© Global Wisdom Research Publications – All Rights Reserved.
ANOVA showed non-significance difference between groups. Here was no significant difference
between genders although there was a trend of improvement which was higher in females than males.
The study conducted at Leiden University and published in Mindfulness journal, show that
meditation can have a long-lasting effect on your thought processes, including the creation of new,
imaginative ideas. Interestingly, though, the study found that enhanced creative thinking was
associated only with such meditation practices as mindfulness – observing and acknowledging
thoughts and emotions that arise; being receptive to them without “following them.” In contrast, an
increase of creative thinking was not associated with meditation practices that involve singular
concentration on an object. The other recent study found that yoga practice diminishes anxiety and
improves overall mood. This study, led by Boston University researchers and published in the Journal
of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, examined brain levels of GABA among participants in a
yoga practice of one and a half hours over twelve weeks. Brain cells when induced enhanced
creativity.
Methodology
The Objective of this study is to find out the effect of selected yogasanas, pranayama and meditation
on creativity of entrepreneurs.
The research design is experimental in nature. Subjects for the present study were forty entrepreneurs
from the Chidambaram town at district of Cuddalore, Tamilnadu, India. The selected subjects were
divided into entrepreneurs practicing yoga(EPY) as control group and entrepreneurs not-practicing
yoga(ENY) as treatment group with twenty subjects each. The experimental group underwent a twelve
weeks yoga training intervention. The control group was not given the training. The training module
was designed for minimum one hour in the morning time from 7.30 am till 8.30 am with the expert
advice of a yoga master.
Geoffrey pett’s creativity scale was administered before and after the training for both the control and
treatment groups. The creativity scale designed by Geoffroy Petty(2010) has 36 items each having five
alternative such as strongly agree, agree, undecided, strongly disagree, disagree. All the 36 items are
true keyed. The responses are weighed from 5 to 1 for strongly agree through strongly disagree. The
scale is based on the ICEDIP model and identifies the inspiration, Clarification, Evaluation,
Distillation, Incubation and perspiration. Each dimensions have 6 items.
Analysis and Discussion
The analysis of co-variance(ANCOVA) was to find out the significant difference if any between the
groups on selected variables. In all the cases 0.05 level of confidence was fixed to test the significance,
which was considered as an appropriate.
The proposed hypothesis (Ha) is, that there is significant difference in creativity of entrepreneurs
practicing yoga as a result of yoga training intervention
Table 1: Pre-post test mean, Standard deviation and adjusted post-test mean of data on
creativity of entrepreneurs
Control
group(ENY)
Treatment
group(EPY) df ‘F’
Creativity
Pre-Test mean 84.6 84.85 1 0.008
SD 10.01 7.35 38
Post-Test mean 82.65 74.75 1 12.7*
SD
6.67
7.29
38
Adjusted Post-Test
Mean
82.68
74.72
1
13.9*
37
37
*significant at 0.05 level
.
The statistical analysis from the table-1 shows that the pre-test means for control group and
experimental groups are 84.60 and 84.85 respectively . The obtained F ratio 0.008 for pre-test is less
IRJBM – (www.irjbm.org ) Volume No – VIII, July – 2015, Issue – 9 Page 62
© Global Wisdom Research Publications – All Rights Reserved.
than the table value 4.09. The result of pre-test indicates that there is no significant difference between
the control group and experimental group. The post- test means of experimental group and control
group are 74.79 and 82.65 respectively. The obtained F ratio 12.7 is greater than the table value 4.09.
The result of the post-test indicates that there is significant difference between the experimental group
and the control group after the yoga training. The adjusted post test mean for the control group and
experimental group are 82.68 and 74.72 respectively. The obtained F ratio for adjusted post-test 13.9 is
greater than the table value 4.10. It interprets that there is significance change in creativity as a result
of yoga training. The results also reveals that there is significant difference.
The results of this study endorses the study conducted by Allyson edgar. Yoga/meditation is also the
best training program for the mind to reach the state of consciousness. It controls the uncontrolled
speed of thoughts due to anger, fear, jealousy, anxiety, tension, etc. Hence, yoga/meditation is a
science not a philosophy and it is an integrated part of the spiritual based training programs linking
mind, body, emotion and action through self-awareness (Von Bergane et al, Rajesh Singh, IM;
Varadhan, 1999; Pragadeeswaran and Panchanatham, 1999; Uma Kxishnamoorthy, and
Desikachari, 2000; Niranjnananda Sarswati Swami, 2001; Ananda Balayogi and Bhavani, 2002;
Sahajanand, 2001).
Conclusion
Brain cells create ideas, stress kills brain cells, Yoga training proves to be effective in stress
management. Thus yoga training is one of the best training intervention for the entrepreneurs to be
stress free and their brain cells gets rejuvenate. This makes them creative. This is proven in this study.
References
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