SKY Happiness Retreat is a 3 day (3 hours/day) workshop designed to help college students decrease stress and anxiety, create meaningful friendships and connections, and experience peace, happiness, and belongingness in daily living. This retreat has been taught around the country, including at Stanford for the last five years as part of Wellness 132 (Stanford Living Education). The cornerstone of the retreat is SKY Breath Meditation, a researched technique which uses the breath to calm the mind, leading to a deep experience of rest and peace.
For extensive research on SKY Breath Meditation, please see this article in Harvard Business Review and TIME Magazine. A recent clinical study in Frontiers of Psychiatry (led by Dr. Emma Seppälä, Science Director at Stanford CCARE’s) compared a SKY based program to other wellness programs at Yale such as MBSR and EI, finding it to be the most impactful, improving outcomes across depression, stress, mental health, mindfulness, positive affect, and social connectedness. See video below on the findings:
SKY Breath Meditation programs have been studied in various populations and settings. Notable observations include: 34% reduction of every day blues [1]; 37% reduction in stress hormone (cortisol) [2]; increased time spent in slow wave sleep [3]; decrease in insomnia [4]; significant reductions in post traumatic stress disorder symptoms [5] “as effective as talk therapy in treating PTSD at the end of treatment, one month following treatment, and one year following treatment” [6]; increase of immune cells [7][8] including 33% increase of lymphocytes [7]; reductions in clinical and non-clinical depression and anxiety [1][9][10] and similar effectiveness to antidepressant drug therapy for major depressive disorder [9].
Stanford Affiliated Research on SKY
Seppälä, E., Bradley, C., Moeller, J., Harouni, L., Nandamudi, D., & Brackett, M. A. (2020). Promoting Mental health and psychological thriving in university students: a randomized controlled trial of three Well-Being interventions. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00590 [paper] [video]
(Emma Seppälä Ph.D Stanford ‘09 is Science Director at Stanford CCARE)
Bayley, P. J., Schulz‐Heik, R. J., Tang, J., Mathersul, D. C., Avery, T., Wong, M., Zeitzer, J. M., Rosen, C. S., Burn, A. S., Hernandez, B., Lazzeroni, L. C., & Seppälä, E. (2022). Randomised clinical non-inferiority trial of breathing-based meditation and cognitive processing therapy for symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in military veterans. BMJ Open, 12(8), e056609. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-056609 [paper]
(Peter Bayley is Director of Research at the War Related Illness and Injury Study Center at VA Palo Alto Associate Professor (affiliated) in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University)
References
[1] Kjellgren, A., et al., Wellness through a comprehensive yogic breathing program – a controlled pilot trial. BMC Complement Altern Med, 2007. 7: p. 43.
[2] Mulla, Z.R. and Vedamuthachar, Impact of a Sudarshan Kriya-based occupational stress management intervention on physiological and psychological outcomes. Management and Labour Studies, 2014. 39(4): p. 381-395.
[3] Sulekha, S., et al., Evaluation of sleep architecture in practitioners of Sudarshan Kriya yoga and Vipassana meditation*. Sleep and Biological Rhythms, 2006. 4(3): p. 207-214.
[4] Korkmaz A, Bernhardsen GP, Cirit B, Koprucu Suzer G, Kayan H, Biçmen H, Tahra M, Suner A, Lehto SM, Sag D, Saatcioglu F. Sudarshan Kriya Yoga Breathing and a Meditation Program for Burnout Among Physicians: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2024 Jan 2
[5] Seppälä, E.M., et al., Breathing‐Based Meditation Decreases Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms in US Military Veterans: A Randomized Controlled Longitudinal Study. Journal of traumatic stress, 2014. 27(4): p. 397-405.
[6] Seppälä, Emma. Breathing Technique Shown Effective For Trauma. 2022. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-it/202209/breathing-technique-shown-effective-trauma
[7] Kochupillai, V., et al., Effect of rhythmic breathing (Sudarshan Kriya and Pranayam) on immune functions and tobacco addiction. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2005. 1056(1): p. 242-252
[8] Subramanian, S., et al., Role of sudarshan kriya and pranayam on lipid profile and blood cell parameters during exam stress: A randomized controlled trial. International journal of yoga, 2012. 5(1): p. 21.
[9] Janakiramaiah, N., et al., Antidepressant efficacy of Sudarshan Kriya Yoga (SKY) in melancholia: a randomized comparison with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and imipramine. Journal of affective disorders, 2000. 57(1): p. 255-259.
[10] Katzman, M.A., et al., A multicomponent yoga-based, breath intervention program as an adjunctive treatment in patients suffering from Generalized Anxiety Disorder with or without comorbidities. International journal of yoga, 2012. 5(1): p. 57.
[11] Vedamurthachar, A., et al., Antidepressant efficacy and hormonal effects of Sudarshana Kriya Yoga (SKY) in alcohol dependent individuals. Journal of affective disorders, 2006. 94(1): p. 249-253.