The purpose of the study was designed to examine the effect of pranayama practices on stress of college women students.  For the purpose of the study, thirty women students from various Departments at Annamalai University were selected as subjects.  They were divided randomly into two equal groups.  each group consisted of the fifteen subjects.  Group I underwent pranayama practices for five days per week for twelve weeks.  Group II acted as control who did not undergo any special training programme apart from their regular programme. The following variable namely stress was selected as criterion variable.  All the subjects of two groups were tested on selected dependent variable at prior to and immediately after the training programme. The analysis of covariance [ANCOVA] was used to analyze the significant difference, if any among the groups. The .05 level of confidence was fixed as the level of significance to test the ‘F’ ratio obtained by the analysis of covariance, which was considered as an appropriate. The results of the study showed that there was a significant difference among pranayama practices group and control group on stress. And also the results of the study showed that there was a significant reduction on stress due to twelve weeks of pranayama practices.

KEYWORDS:

PRANAYAMA PRACTICES, STRESS, ANCOVA, COLLEGE WOMEN