disorders and primary sleep disorders. However, the subjects studied here were screened to exclude these factors. Hence any sleep disorganization observed in them may be attributed to psychological factors associated with ‘assorted life changes such as loss of loved ones, leaving a familiar home to live in a more supervised setting’, as well as financial strain.In the present study the improvement in sleep . The practice of yoga has been shown to reduce signs of physiological arousal in normal volunteers based on measurements of autonomic and respiratory variables and oxygen consumption , as well as a decrease in plasma catecholamine levels. A similar benefit of reduced physiological arousal following yoga was also seen in persons with higher than usual arousal to begin with, related to their social circumstances.

While the above studies have shown that the practice of yoga decreases psychophysiological arousal, it has also been shown that subjects who practiced yoga breathing (pranayama) for a two-year period could achieve higher work rates with reduced oxygen consumption per unit work and without an increase in blood lactate levels . In addition, yoga practice was shown to help in adapting to unusual environmental demands  and to bring about a shift in balance, in cases of abnormal functioning as evidenced by changes in the electroencephalograph frequencies in epileptics following six months of Sahaja yoga .

Hence, yoga may have reduced the time taken to fall asleep and increased the total sleep time by reducing physiological arousal, manifestations of anxiety and improving the ability to physiologically adapt in this group of institutionalized, older persons. Difficulty in falling asleep has been found to be higher in groups with physiologic and somatoform disorders. Also, complaints of nocturnal awakening were higher in persons with anxiety and physiologic disorders. In the present study, most often the participants woke up because of nycturia, occasional cough, and non-specific aches.

Rasayana Kalpa has been believed to promote positive health in older persons and contains, among other constituents, the roots of Withania somnifera . The roots of Withania somnifera are traditionally used to promote physical and mental health, to provide defence against disease and adverse environmental factors and to arrest aging. Withania somnifera is also used to stabilize the mood in persons with behavioural disturbances. The anxiolytic and antidepressive effects of the bioactive glycowithanolides isolated from Withania somnifera roots were compared with those of the benzodiazepine, lorazepam and the tricyclic antidepressant, imipramine, respectively, in rats . The herbal preparation exhibited an antidepressant effect comparable with that induced by imipramine, supporting the use of this preparation as a mood stabilizer.

The absence of change in the Ayurveda group may be related to the fact that the number of subjects at six months was reduced to 12, versus 18 in the Yoga group. The main reason was that the preparation was followed by milk (as prescribed in Ayurveda texts), hence, they chose to give up their customary intake of coffee. This was not a required restriction but though the participants chose to give it up, they were uncomfortable about it.

Sleep disorders have been shown to be related to depressive symptoms, poor physical activity, medication and bad self-rated health. As already described, yoga is known to reduce anxiety while physical activity is increased .

. In addition, the philosophical aspects of yoga may have been important to reduce depressive symptoms in these institutionalized older persons . The subjective assessment of the participants was that singing devotional songs was the most enjoyable part of the yoga programme. This devotion was “ bhakti yoga” or the science of emotion culture . Hence an integrated approach of yoga including the mental and philosophical aspects in addition to the physical, was especially useful.

The present results suggest that yoga practice, which includes physical activity, relaxation with awareness, and inputs about philosophical and emotional stability , improved the sleep and increased the feeling of being refreshed on awakening in institutionalized older persons. Since it is known that changes in sleep are inevitable as age advances , any intervention, which makes this process free from difficulties, is a useful addition to the routine of older persons. Since the assessments were done using a questionnaire, which was subjective in nature, the findings of the study should be regarded as a preliminary observation rather than a substantiated view. In order to objectively understand the changes in sleep architecture underlying these improvements, further research with polysomnographic recordings would be required.