The Early Years Part Three: Pioneering Research on Self-efficacy Beliefs in Health Recovery & Pauri Kriya

by Shanti Shanti Khalsa, PhD, C-IAYT, Guru Ram Das Center for Medicine & Humanology Founder

In The Early Years Part Two, I shared how early HIV researchers demonstrated that treatment was not the determining factor for those who stayed well with HIV or AIDS. 

It was the psychology – a way of thinking – that those living healthier and longer with HIV or AIDS had in common. This major discovery changed my entire approach to teaching Kundalini Yoga therapeutically: When we incorporate the psychology of health recovery, outcomes improve.

Diving even deeper brings us to this question:

❓ Which aspect of the psychology of health recovery is the most helpful?

💡Self-efficacy – the belief that what you do makes a difference.

More than simply having a positive attitude, self-efficacy is known to influence motivation, resilience, health behavior change, and endurance.

 

Therapeutic Kundalini Yoga Teaching Tip #6:

Engage the power of beliefs to support new health behaviors.

Albert Bandura, PhD, of Stanford University, dedicated his academic career to the study of self-efficacy.

He made the extraordinary discovery that simply holding the belief that what you do makes a difference – without actually doing anything to make a difference – improves the immune response.

How incredible is that?!

And, groundbreaking studies in the 1980s by clinical psychologist Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, PhD showed how stress, loneliness, and poor relationships compromise the immune system, slow down wound healing, and heighten inflammation.

As Director of the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research at Ohio State University, and S. Robert Davis Chair of Medicine, she is a leading researcher in psychoneuroimmunology.

In recent years Janice Kiecolt-Glaser’s studies also include the effects of yoga practice on health outcomes.

 

My Early Research on Self-Efficacy & Pauri Kriya

With Albert Bandura’s and Janice Kiecolt-Glaser’s research results as inspiration, I designed and conducted a study on the effects of meditation on changing self-efficacy beliefs for people who were HIV positive.

The study was the basis of my doctoral dissertation in health psychology. The meditation in the research protocol is Pauri Kriya.

To experience the meditation yourself, click here for the free video on our website homepage, or click on the link at the end of this article.

Description

At the time that I was conducting the study, from 1989 to 1992, most meditation research was longitudinal. This means that results were measured over the course of three, five, or seven years.

For someone with a life-threatening illness such as HIV disease, time becomes precious and actions become intentional. A person who is told they have 18 to 24 months to live is not going to do something that takes them three, five, or seven years to show results. They need to experience results right away.

As a Kundalini Yoga teacher, you know that people experience change in their very first class. So, one of my study’s key contributions to meditation research was to demonstrate that practicing just one time creates a change that is statistically significant.

The Results

The results of the study show that practicing Pauri Kriya for 20 minutes – just once – significantly improves self-efficacy across three dimensions:

🔶 General self-efficacy – how empowered I feel to influence my own experience in the world.

🔶 Health behavior self-efficacy – belief in my ability to make healthy choices consistently.

🔶 Social self-efficacy – belief in my ability to generate friendship and support.

Keep in mind that in 1989 the medical establishment had declared that there was not much a person living with HIV/AIDS could do to improve their outcomes. Keep in mind that low self-efficacy was expected.

And yet, we had these consequential results for improved self-efficacy.

As one study participant shared with me after hearing the research results, “Living with HIV and believing in my ability to get [well] and stay well is only one of my triumphs! There is a life being lived here.”

 

Therapeutic Kundalini Yoga Teaching Tip #7:

Never underestimate the power of thought on getting and staying well. This is not magic – it is science, as Albert Bandura’s, Janice Kiecolt-Glaser’s, and my research indicate.

In this 10-minute free video, I share Pauri Kriya and my research on self-efficacy in an interview led by Atma Chanan Kaur.

Experience Pauri Kriya for yourself with me as I guide you through this very special meditation – not found anywhere else.