ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER HEARTFULNESS MEDITATION PROMOTES LIFE SATISFACTION Raja Amarnath G* Professor & Head, Pulmonology and critical care, Sree Balaji Medical College & Hospital, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai *Corresponding Author Mansee Thakur Director, Department of Medical Biotechnology, Mahatma Gandhi Mission Institute of Health Sciences, Mumbai Aiswarya Ravichandran Clinical Researcher, CIPACA Institute of Research, Chennai. Satyakam Assistant Professor, Department of Electircal and Electronics, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal Pooja Sinha Peace Faculty, MIT World Peace University, Pune Pragya Kalia Vice President, Hindustan Times Media Ltd, ADP Alumnus of Wharton School, Circulation and Product Department, University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Rajani Mishra Associate Professor Department, Information Science, Banaras Hindu University, Banaras Vasant Kumar Venkatraman Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Abu Dhabi Vocational Education & Training Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAE. ABSTRACT Studies indicated that temporal satisfaction positively affects health. Research on Heartfulness meditation has established that it reduces stress, promotes mental well-being, both of which positively impact life satisfaction. Hence we explored whether Heartfulness Meditation promotes life satisfaction. Cross-sectional study was conducted among Heartfulness Meditators (n=5,988) and Non-Meditators (n=5,909) using snowballing technique for sample selection. 'Temporal Satisfaction with Life Scale' was used for data collection. Descriptive statistical analysis and independent t-test was performed. Result indicated that Heartfulness Meditators had signicantly higher temporal satisfaction than non-meditators (p < 0.05). Similar effect was observed in sub-group analysis. Life dissatisfaction leads to chronic diseases. Heartfulness meditation helps to get rid of negative thoughts and develops positive energy that enables practitioner to realize the true nature of different circumstances and be contented which naturally leads to satised life. To conclude, Heartfulness meditation practice, as a lifestyle, appears to be an effective tool to promote life satisfaction. KEYWORDS Heartfulness Meditation, Life Satisfaction, Temporal satisfaction, Mental well-being. INTRODUCTION “You are what you think all day long” - Ralph Waldo Emerson Sowing the positive thoughts all through the day is linked to a healthy life [1]. According to WHO, “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or inrmity”. This denition clearly states that mental well-being is imperative for a healthy life. Important factors among the positive psychology foreshadowing good health are positive emotions, life satisfaction and optimism [2, 3, 4]. Life satisfaction is dened as a cognitive judgement of the life of a person and reects a global evaluation related to his or her life [5]. Temporal satisfaction is nothing but life satisfaction in the past, present and future. It gives an assimilated conclusion of how a person's life as a whole has gone, is going, and will go [6]. Studies indicate that temporal satisfaction and health are interrelated and temporal satisfaction has direct inuence over health-related factors like chronic illnesses, sleep problems, physical tness, stress, depression and physical activity [7]. Arrindell and his team found that anxiety was inversely related to life satisfaction [8]. Similarly, depression is consistently reported to be negatively correlated with life satisfaction in both clinical [9] and non- clinical samples [8,10]. Shilpy Kashyap and her team proved that employee's life satisfaction is directly proportional to efcient work and productivity in an organization [11]. Research indicates that life satisfaction is a predictor of longevity and psychiatric morbidity. There is evidence between life dissatisfaction and all-cause disease, injury and mortality with a dose-response relationship [12]. Life dissatisfaction is related to obesity and adverse health behaviors such as smoking, heavy drinking and physical inactivity. Also the connections between asthma, arthritis, diabetes and heart disease with life dissatisfaction reside signicant [7]. Factors like quality of society, position in society, personal abilities, courses of life events, ow of experience and inner process of evaluation determine the life satisfaction [13]. Studies have proven that meditation improves the inner strength which is one of the determinant of life satisfaction. It is a powerful technique for learning to live in and enjoy the moment. When practiced regularly, meditation appears to decrease negative emotions like anxiety and depression and increases positive emotions like joy, contentment and peace by balancing the chemical components in the brain areas like Amygdala & Hippocampus [14]. It also strengthens areas of the brain in charge of managing emotions and controlling attention. It makes a person more fully engaged in the here-and-now and more aware and appreciative of good things. In the recent studies, Heartfulness Meditation has been shown to improve the metal health [15], at the same time, reduces the stress [16], both of which are known to positively affect life satisfaction. To the best of our knowledge, no study has been conducted so far to gure out the direct link between temporal satisfaction and meditation. This is focus of our present study which is a cross sectional survey aimed to observe whether the practitioners of Heartfulness Meditation have higher levels of satisfaction in life compared to general population. Methodology Study design and participants In this cross-sectional study, we used snowballing technique for st selection of the participants. This study was conducted online from 1 st Sept 2018 to 31 Oct 2018 using Google form Questionnaire; all those responded within this period have been taken for study analysis. Totally 12,695 participants lled the Temporal Satisfaction INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH Medical Science Volume-9 | Issue-1 | January-2020 | PRINT ISSN No. 2277 - 8179 | DOI : 10.36106/ijsr 38 International Journal of Scientific Research