Correlation of overt expression of Dharaniya Vega with Generalized Anxiety Disorder a holistic perspective

Attempts must be made to solve the arising crisis of anxiety among the common population by providing an Ayurvedic perspective. GAD affects about 6.8 million people in India and is commonly seen in adolescence and adulthood. Individuals with anxiety may maintain normal social and physical health, yet anxiety lurks as a masked unwanted feeling hindering their lives. This masked anxiety may be related to the manasik vegas and their dharan. Manasik vegas are feelings people deal with every day and often give least importance to in terms of being measured, expressed, controlled or suppressed. Ayurveda is known for its simple approach to curing major diseases and hence, the daily arising feelings and their right management could be linked to understanding of the mental health deteriorating aspects of anxiety. Its principles have the potential to correlate anxiety with “Dharaniya Vegas”, mainly the dharan (suppression) of the 9 manasik vegas highlighted by Acharya Charak.

Manasa bhav (mental feelings) like greed, grief, anger, etc. are present in every person, and the imbalance of these may lead to problems affecting the mental and social well-being of an individual. A specific emotion can act as a trigger factor towards momentary anxiety. Also, any of these 9 emotions could be a cause of a lifetime of anxiety. Ayurveda might have answers to the factors leading to and affecting the severity of anxiety. A quantitative measure of the vegas with a scale of anxiety will act as an appreciation towards the understanding of a neoteric issue in terms of holistic sciences.

A detailed survey will be conducted among individuals of age group 18 to 30. These individuals will have to answer two questionnaires in particular. The first one will be a quantitative measure of GAD by the standardized GAD-7 scale which will be a self-diagnostic measure. The next will be a general quantitative questionnaire on Dharaniya vegas designed and verified by professionals to measure the control and suppression of the 9 Dharaniya vegas mentioned in Charak Samhita.

Outcome- Overview of the status of each vega in an individual as per the scale presented.Individual assessment of 9 Dharaniya Vega generating 900 observations with respect to the 4 groups of population as per GAD-7 score.

Implications and Future Scope: The comparative study will provide a quantitative understanding of how the manasik vegas are related to the Generalised Anxiety Disorder (specifically to the GAD-7 scale). The correlation may prove the theoretical principle of Dharaniya Vegas to be applicable in the diagnosis and cure of anxiety as well as other related mental health issues.