Weeklong residential Ayurvedic program yields lasting increases in perceived well-being

Participants in the weeklong residential "Perfect Health Program," developed by author and researcher Deepak Chopra, MD, had significant and lasting increases in perceived well-being and reductions in anxiety compared to a control group that experienced relaxation alone. These results are presented in the study published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (http://www..liebertpub.com/).

The study entitled "The Self-Directed Biological Transformation Initiative and Well-Being (http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/acm.2016.0002)," led by Paul Mills, PhD University of California, San Diego (La Jolla) and the Samueli Institute (Alexandria, VA), with coauthors from Duke University (Durham, NC) and Mount Sinai Hospital (New York, NY), and including Rudoph Tanzi, MD, Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA) and Deepak Chopra, MD, The Chopra Center for Wellbeing (Carlsbad, CA), evaluated healthy men and women participating in the Ayurvedic program at a residential resort location for 6 days and included a 1-month follow-up. The intervention included group meditation and yoga, massage, diet, adaptogenic herbs, lectures, and journaling. Members of the control group simply vacationed during their stay. Self-reported measures included spirituality, gratitude, self-compassion, and anxiety.

"Given the significant amounts of money being spent to help bring people to health, this team's look at a whole system, residential, integrative approach is a particularly useful contribution," says The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine Editor-in-Chief John Weeks, johnweeks-integrator.com, Seattle, WA.