Business executives’ lives have become a never-ending race against time, technology, and targets. This race creates tension, which leads to dissatisfaction and frustration and eventually manifests itself as psychological and physiological stress with mental and emotional drain. This modern lifestyle intensifies the stress leading to “excessive tension” and consequent deterioration in “executive efficiency.” Yoga does have the potential to provide physical, mental, and emotional health benefits to those who practice it with proper guidance.[¹] A holistic and integrated stress management program called Self-Management of Excessive Tension (SMET) also called cyclic meditation has been investigated extensively to combat this modern lifestyle problem and thereby one can lead a holistic way of living in health, harmony, and happiness.[²] Previous work on stress management educational program reported significant improvement in the subjective well being inventory (SUBI) scores of the 77 subjects within a period of 10 days as compared to controls. These observations suggest that a short lifestyle modification and stress management educational program can make an appreciable contribution to primary prevention as well as management of lifestyle diseases.[³] Previous study on SMET reported a decrease in occupational stress levels and baseline autonomic arousal in managers, suggesting significant reduction in sympathetic activity[⁴] and better emotional well-being in them.[⁵] No previous investigation has systematically evaluated the effect of SMET program (in a residential set-up program) on emotional intelligence quotient (EQ) in managers. Hence, we have designed the present study to assess the efficacy of 5 days SMET program on managers using EQ test.

The data analysis showed 72.02% significant increase (P<0.001) in EQ. Persons with high EQ may strike a balance between emotion and reason, are aware of their own feelings, show empathy and compassion for others, and have high self-esteem which may be instrumental in many situations in the workplace and can help achieve organizational effectiveness.[⁸]

Recent research has shown a positive relationship between EQ and workplace success.[⁹] Previous study on yoga reported enhanced EQ as a result of the practice of yoga way of life. The results indicate the importance of yoga as an integral element in improving managerial performance in organizations.[¹⁰] The present study is consistent with these findings, indicating that a systematic adoption of the SMET program can result in better EQ among managers for “executive efficiency,” thus paving the way for their better performance as managers.

The results from this study suggest that participation in the SMET program was associated with improvement in EQ and may have implications for “executive efficiency.” Because before and after designs limit inferences about intervention effects, further research is warranted to explore the effects of SMET program for stress management using a larger, randomized controlled trial.

Source of Support: Nil

Conflict of Interest: None declared.

Authors acknowledge Dr. Nagarathna, Dr. T. M. Srinivasan and Sri Judu of Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana (S-VYASA) University for their expert guidance and many useful suggestions.