International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | September 2022 | Vol 9 | Issue 9 Page 3544 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Raj RA et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2022 Sep;9(9):3544-3550 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article Effect of Shiva Samkalpa Sooktha chanting on stress among ayurveda college students: an open label randomized trial design Resmy Raj A. 1 *, Abhilash M. 2 , Chitra M. Gawande 1 , Jeevan Jagadeesh Kulkarni 3 INTRODUCTION Stress is the sum of the physical, mental, and emotional tensions on a person due to various life demands. A stressor is any stimulus that arouses stress in a person e.g., natural calamities like flood etc., life events like separation of loved ones, daily hassles include meeting dead-lines at work or ambient stressors like pollution, noise etc. 1 Research conducted by American college health association found out that stress is the common inhibitor on academic performance of students followed by depression, anxiety and sleep difficulties. 2 The estimated prevalence of stress in modern medical college students is 71.9% in Saudi Arabian medical school, 31.2% in the British universities, 41.9% in Malaysian medical school and 61.4% in a Thai medical school. 3 Main stressors in academic sector includes high job ambitions, vast syllabus, financial difficulties, peer pressure, problems in ABSTRACT Backgrounds: Stress is physical or mental tension in response to life demands. In medical sectors, the surplus stress may decrease the students’ abilities to establish good relationships with patients resulting in feeling of clinical dissatisfaction. Methods: In this open label interventional study, 160 students from an Ayurveda college, India who were suffering from moderate stress, after screening with perceived stress scale (PSS 10) were selected. They were instructed to complete the inventory of college student’s recent life experiences (ICSRLE) scale and satva sara assessment. The participants were randomly allocated into two groups of 80 each. Test group was administered shiva samkalpa sooktha chanting continuously for 30 minutes for 48 days at 6 AM in yoga hall of the institution. Control group did not follow any of the practices followed by mantra group. After 48 days; both groups were evaluated for stress and satva sara. Results: Post hoc analysis with Wilcoxon signed rank test showed statistically significant reduction of stress in test group soon after mantra chanting. Mann-Whitney U test showed a difference in perceived stress between groups after mantra chanting; but the result is statistically not significant (U=2446.5, p=0.167). Statistically significant reduction in ICSRLE stress score is observed in test group compared to control group after chanting (U=2268, p=0.040). Conclusions: Short term mantra chanting can reduce the stress among undergraduate students. Reduction is more appreciated in stressors like relationship related problems, time factor and in social isolation factors. Keywords: Perceived stress, Mantra chanting, Undergraduate professional college students, Ayurveda college students, ICSRLE scale 1 Department of Shareera Kriya, SDM Institute of Ayurveda and Hospital, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India 2 Department of Shareera Kriya, Govt Ayurveda College, Tripunithura, Kerala, India 3 Department of Samhita and Sidhantha, SDM Institute of Ayurveda and Hospital, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India Received: 22 July 2022 Revised: 17 August 2022 Accepted: 18 August 2022 *Correspondence: Dr. Resmy Raj A., E-mail: resmyraj.bala@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20222222