Effectiveness of Rajyoga meditation on cognitive functions and quality of life in young adults with internet addiction

Objectives: Recently, an increasing trend in the prevalence of internet addiction (IA) has been seen worldwide. IA is found to be associated with impaired cognitive functions, emotional dysregulations and psychological morbidity, warranting the need for appropriate preventive and curative interventional modalities. Nonpharmacological interventions such as meditation may help in positively modifying internet behaviour and combatting its adverse effects on cognitive functions and psycho-social health. The purpose of the study was to assess the influence of Rajyoga meditation (RYM) on cognition and quality of life (QOL) in young adults with IA. Materials and Methods: In the present prospective interventional study, a total of 40 young adults with IA were divided equally into two groups: Control and meditation. Subjects in the meditation group practised RYM for 20 min/day, daily for 8 weeks. Control group subjects received no intervention. Assessments were conducted thrice at the following time points: Before intervention (baseline), after 1 week (T1) and 8 (T2) weeks of intervention. Various assessment tools such as Young’s 20-Item IA Test (YIAT), World Health Organization QOL brief (WHOQOL-Bref) and Montreal cognitive assessment (MOCA) questionnaires were utilised. The statistical analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 25.0 (IBM Corp). Results: Baseline characteristics were similar in both groups. The results revealed significant ( P < 0.001) main effects of time for YIAT and MOCA. This effect was further qualified by a significant interaction between time and group for YIAT ( P < 0.001). The results further highlighted significant between groups effects in mean scores of YIAT, MOCA ( P < 0.01) and WHOQOL-Bref domains 2, 4 ( P < 0.01) and domain 3 ( P < 0.05) after 8 weeks of intervention. Within the meditation group, a significant increase in mean scores of both MOCA ( P < 0.01) and WHOQOL-Bref ( P < 0.05) and a significant decrease in mean YIAT ( P < 0.001) scores were observed after 8 weeks of intervention. Conclusion: RYM decreased the severity of IA as indexed by YIAT and improved the overall cognitive function and QOL in young adults with IA, as evidenced by MOCA and WHOQOL-Bref, respectively. These findings indicate that RYM was effective in ameliorating the negative effects of IA and can serve as a useful preventive and curative non-pharmacological interventional modality for promoting cognitive and psycho-social well-being in subjects with IA disorder.