Ingunn Hagen is fascinated by the overlap between psychology and yoga. Her ambition is to include yoga and yogic remedy as a part of the programme {of professional} research in psychology at NTNU. Credit score: Norwegian College of Science and Expertise
Ten years of analysis on yoga as a stress-reducing exercise offers a transparent reply: Just a little effort gives actual well being advantages.
“It was surprising how significant the stress reduction people experienced and reported was,” mentioned Ingunn Hagen, a professor at NTNU’s Division of Psychology. In two articles from 2023 (Frontiers in Psychology) and 2024 (Frontiers in Public Well being), Hagen and her co-researchers investigated how youngsters and lively professionals expertise practising yoga.
Her analysis exhibits that yoga contributes to diminished stress within the office and in school.
Fast impact
“The young people in the 2023 study attended yoga classes only eight times. It was fascinating that so few hours made a difference. I knew on a general basis that yoga helps a lot with relaxation, but I was surprised that it was so pronounced, that they felt it so clearly,” Hagen mentioned.
The analysis on younger folks and yoga was a part of a serious European venture that centered on intervention analysis in decrease and higher secondary faculties. The intention of the venture was to advertise psychological well being via yoga, with a selected give attention to reaching deprived younger folks.
Saved a diary
The younger folks had been inspired to maintain a diary or log whereas attending the yoga lessons. They had been requested to put in writing freely about what they had been considering and feeling earlier than and after the yoga periods, and the way they skilled the apply of yoga.
“We noticed a focus on relaxation and less stress both in the questionnaires and in the qualitative interviews with the young people, but especially in the logs,” mentioned Hagen.
The younger folks positioned nice emphasis on leisure, reporting that yoga helped them with this. Even a restricted interval of yoga influenced how they coped with stress, making them extra relaxed.
This in flip led to them experiencing larger well-being.
Yoga for job-related stress
Stress and stress administration emerged as a transparent theme within the analysis on the adults as properly. Yoga helped cut back work-related stress.
“For many people, stress is strongly present in the workplace in a negative way. It affects their job performance, how they feel at work, and their work–life balance,” mentioned Hagen.
Traditionally, stress, within the type of the “fight or flight” reflex, is one thing people wanted to outlive. In the present day, these mechanisms are activated usually via work that calls for high-level efficiency, via know-how that we should grasp, and thru life within the fashionable world.
We should be always activated, alert and centered. This causes the sympathetic nervous system to be overactive.
“Turning off” the stress mechanisms of the sympathetic nervous system could be troublesome, which is what yoga appears to assist with. Yoga offers leisure and thus allows us to activate the parasympathetic nervous system.
That is the place the physique rests, the abdomen digests and the mind processes impressions. Yoga helps create a greater steadiness between the sympathetic and parasympathetic components of the autonomic nervous system.
“Again, when we analyzed the working adults who practiced yoga, we were rather surprised by the significant impact yoga had on them,” mentioned Hagen. The informants described feeling larger well-being and that they had been higher ready to deal with stress.
Sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system
The sympathetic nervous system is activated in stress conditions or conditions which are bodily demanding. These adjustments result in an elevated provide of oxygen and vitamins to sure components of the physique and are crucial to have the ability to work laborious.
The parasympathetic nervous system is activated once we are relaxed and is vital for the regulation of digestion and urination. The parasympathetic nervous system usually has the alternative impact of the sympathetic nervous system. An instance of that is that parasympathetic stimulation lowers the center price, whereas sympathetic stimulation will increase it.
Respiratory workout routines earlier than conferences
Yoga additionally modified how folks carried out at work. A number of of the research contributors talked about that they used yogic respiratory workout routines when making ready for a gathering or once they wished to calm down and get well throughout their workday. A lot of them additionally described how elevated leisure helped them “lower their guard” a bit and turn out to be extra approachable with colleagues.
“Stress reduction can therefore also have a potentially significant impact on the working environment,” mentioned Hagen.
Nonetheless, she emphasizes that it shouldn’t be used as a crutch or an excuse for not addressing tense workplaces or studying environments.
If understaffing or different components are inflicting stress within the office, then the office have to be modified.
“For example, it would be wrong if employees are encouraged to practice mindfulness instead of employers providing good working conditions for employees,” she mentioned.
Constructive and adverse facets of yoga
On the identical time, when stress is already current, yoga is usually a helpful apply that improves folks’s high quality of life and helps them really feel slightly higher in themselves.
On this regard, you will need to set up and talk about when yoga contributes to leisure and when it turns into simply one other factor so as to add to the to-do record.
“Yoga has become ‘big business’ and is very popular. This in itself makes yoga and the experience of yoga a phenomenon that should be explored scientifically,” Hagen mentioned.
“And we should use all types of methods to identify both the positive and the negative sides of yoga, because there can be some downsides. For example, yoga can become too performance-oriented, and then there is a risk of adding yet another element of stress to people’s lives,” she added.
“We can see it in depictions of yoga on social media. In the West, it is typical to see images of a young, slim, white woman in a highly acrobatic pose. What does this contribute to? When yoga simply becomes acrobatics and something to show off about, I don’t believe it is health-promoting. I am interested in yoga from a more humanistic perspective,” she mentioned.
Yoga-related accidents
Bodily accidents may happen if folks go too far or deep into a selected pose and push themselves an excessive amount of.
“Yoga-related injuries have long been a taboo in the yoga world and have not been extensively studied in yoga research either,” Hagen mentioned.
A lot of the analysis on yoga is completed by individuals who apply yoga themselves and are keen about yoga as a type of train.
“There is a potential danger here: it could render the research field somewhat blind to the fact that there can also be negative aspects to yoga,” mentioned Hagen.
Hagen means that analysis ought to give attention to which types of yoga contribute most to common good well being.
“Our two initiatives are comparatively small, they usually do not cowl every part. For instance, in our analysis venture on yoga in working life, we did not give attention to what sort of yoga the contributors practiced, however that is one thing that must be studied and that analysis ought to have the ability to present clear findings on.
Yoga within the office or in faculties?
Hagen thinks the necessity for extra analysis is particularly related if yoga is to be really useful as an initiative within the office.
“Introducing yoga into workplaces and schools would be beneficial in many ways, as many employees and pupils could benefit from it,” she mentioned.
“I hope that yoga research is used to create a better life for people. I honestly believe that yoga can be a tool for people to improve their health and quality of life. And perhaps people will also become more in touch with themselves,”she added.
Hagen is fascinated by the overlap between psychology and yoga. Her ambition is to include yoga and yogic remedy as a part of this system {of professional} research in psychology at NTNU.
“Both as part of the psychological therapy students learn to practice, so they can offer it to patients, but also for their own benefit in the future. As a professional group, psychologists are prone to burnout if they don’t take care of themselves,” she mentioned.
“Yoga could serve as a tool for self-care,” mentioned Hagen.
“It is a vision I have—to incorporate yoga into the program of professional study in psychology before I retire. Even if I could just get the ball rolling, it would be worth it. There are several students who are already interested in yoga, both from a research perspective and as a personal practice. Then there is the idea of offering various yoga courses throughout NTNU, both for employees and students. That would be fantastic!” Hagen mentioned.
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