ABSTRACT
Despite improved clinical care, heightened public awareness and wide spread use of health innovations, alcoholism remains a leading cause of death in many parts of the world. Chronic alcoholics suffer from stress and multitude of symptoms. The progressive addiction to alcohol will gradually nullify all other interests in the patient's life so that a deterioration of the physical, psychological, social, cultural and religious values takes place. The role of yoga in healing asthma, arthritis and other disorders has been known. Breathing technique [Anuloma Viloma Pranayama] was taught to chronic alcoholics. Using galvanic skin resistance, stress levels were measured before and after anuloma viloma yoga in controls and chronic alcoholics. Reduced stress levels were noted using the galvanic skin resistance in both controls and chronic alcoholics after yogic breathing. There is a promising effect of simple yoga techniques in organising effective rehabilitation and treatment programmes to reduce stress in chronic alcoholics. This study would help to chart out a better management programme for enhancing relapse and alleviate the symptoms
Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Alcoholics , Stress, Physiological , Stress, PsychologicalABSTRACT
Alcohol has been widely consumed since prehistoric times by people around the world, as a component of the standard diet, for hygienic or medical reasons, for its relaxant and euphoric effects, for recreational purposes, for artistic inspiration and as aphrodisiacs. Alcohol is known to affect the sympathetic and parasympathetic activity, though the exact disturbances and degree of damage to the autonomic nervous system is not fully understood and possibility of reciprocal damage to these nerves have not been studied. Sympathetic nerve function was assessed by measurement of the galvanic skin resistance [GSR] Parasympathetic nerve function was assessed by R-R interval variation during deep breathing as measured by the heart rate variability [HRV] by the expiration/inspiration [E/I] ratio. 135 chronic alcoholics admitted to the Velankini rehabilitation ward were selected for this study. GSR was measured using GSR meter and HRV was assessed manually from calculation of the mean R-R interval and its standard deviation measured on short-term electrocardiograms. Karl Pearson correlation was used to look for an association between GSR and HRV. A negative correlation of-0.919 was obtained. This signified that higher the sympathetic activity, lesser the vagal activity. Thus chronic consumption of alcohol has caused a proportional and reciprocal damage of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves in the human system