title: Ancient science of yogic life for academic excellence in university students.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Academic excellence is essential to provide opportunities for students to work together to improve their understanding of concepts in their academic core. Academic excellence helps students to teach problem-solving and collaborative learning strategies.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The objective of this study was to assess Guna (personality traits) in students undergoing Yoga Instructor's Course (YIC).
  
  
  METHODS
  In all, 68 YIC students with a mean age of 28.03 ± 9.38 years participated in this single group pre-post study. The Personality Inventory data were collected before (pre) and after (post) the YIC.
  
  
  METHODS
  Means, standard deviations, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, and Wilcoxon signed rank test were used for analyzing the data with the help of SPSS 16.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The data analysis showed 11.33% decrease (P < 0.01) in Tamas Guna (dull personality trait), 0.68% decrease (P =0.819) in Rajas Guna (violent personality trait), and 10.34% increase (P <0.01) in Sattva Guna (balanced personality trait) scores.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study suggests that YIC can result in the improvement of Sattva Guna (balance personality trait) among students, thus paving the way for their academic excellence.
authors.affiliation: Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana (S-VYASA) University, Bangalore, India.
authors.forename: Sham Ganpat
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Tikhe
authors.forename: H R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Nagendra
authors.forename: Neeraj
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tripathi
keywords: Academic excellence; ancient science of yogic life; university students