The benefits of yoga during COVID lockdown
- galiayogin
- May 7, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: May 26, 2021
Research has shown that yoga can be incorporated into conventional medical practice to complement the management of various health conditions (1). As a mind-body discipline, yoga integrates physical postures, breathing exercises and meditation. During COVID lockdown, a survey was done to investigate whether yoga was an effective strategy for self-management of stress related problems and well-being (2).
The purpose of the study (2) was to compare the effects of yoga with the effects of other spiritual practices and with no spiritual practice. Six-hundred and sixty-eight participants were contacted for the survey, and they were classified into three main groups according to their responses:
- Yoga Practitioners (59.6%; n:384)
- Other spiritual practitioners
- Non-practitioners
The yoga practitioners were also divided into three groups depending on the duration of their yoga practice:
a) Long-term practitioners (25.32 %; n:97)
b) Mid-term practitioners (39.7%; n:152)
c) Beginners (35%; n:134)
Beginners were the ones who had started practicing yoga during the lockdown. Mid-term practitioners had been practicing for one to four years. Long-term practitioners had been practicing for five or more years.
Six hundred and forty three people participated in the study; 64 percent of the participants were men; 34 percent were women. The age range was 18-72 years.
The study reveals the occupation of the participants, level of education and the percentage of the participants living in rural, suburban and urban areas (2).
59.6% reported that they practiced yoga and 40.9% did not follow any yogic practice. From the non-yoga practitioners 17.6% (n: 113) reported following other forms of spiritual practice, and 22.7% (n:146) reported that they did not follow any kind of spiritual practice.
The study found that yoga practitioners perceived having higher personal control, lower emotional impact and higher preventive control for contracting COVID than other spiritual practitioners and non-practitioners.
Yoga practitioners reported better understanding and higher personal control over COVID19. Yoga practitioners were also found to have lower depression, lower anxiety and less stress and higher well being and peace of mind than the other spiritual practitioners and the non-practitioners. The other spiritual group (non-yoga) was also found to have higher peace of mind when compared to the non-spiritual practitioners. The non-yogic spiritual group was also found to have less depression and less anxiety when compared to the non-spiritual group, but the difference between these two groups was not considered statistically significant.
Within the yoga practitioners, however, there was a positive correlation between the effects and the duration of yoga experience, but the three groups-- beginners, mid-term and long-term practitioners-- expressed higher personal control, lower emotional impact and higher peace of mind. The greatest effects were documented in the long-term practitioners.
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