The immediate and durable effects of yoga and physical fitness exercises on stress

Comparing the Psychological Effects of Meditation- and Breathing-Focused Yoga Practice in Undergraduate Students

“…Many previous yoga researches focused on a designated group of age and sex (such as middle-aged women, adolescence, undergraduates, see Quach et al, 2016;Philips et al, 2019). Some research explored how age or sex were related to yoga practice effect (Savita, 2006;Cahn et al, 2017;Rojiani et al, 2017) and some controlled demographic variables in empirical studies (Fishbein et al, 2016;Cahn et al, 2017;Tong et al, 2020). Moreover, age and/or sex were found to be significantly related to outcomes of work motivation (Boumans et al, 2012), mindfulness (Edwards, 2019), and stress (Folkman et al, 1987).…”

“…Survey invitations were delivered to 120 participants. Individuals who have regular practice of yoga or similar techniques in the previous year were excluded (Tong et al, 2020), and there were 101 valid data for pre-survey. The final sample, with matched pre-and post-intervention measures, included 86 students (with five males) aged between 19 and 23 (M = 20.79; SD = 1.00).…”

“…The instruction for administering this survey was the same with the mindfulness measure. It was used in previous yoga literature (Tong et al, 2020). Sample items include, "I found it difficult to relax" and "I tended to over-react to situations."…”

“…Thus, breathing-focused yoga practice may be more effective to improve mindfulness (i.e., attention and awareness) in a group of yoga novices. Since higher energy levels and mindfulness can help people decrease stress (Tong et al, 2020), breathing-focused yoga practice may be also better to reduce stress than meditation in a group of yoga novices.…”

Mind–Body Physical Activity Interventions and Stress-Related Physiological Markers in Educational Settings: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…The common goal of MBPA is the integration of mind, body, and spirit (i.e., lifeforce, perception, energy, or vitality) while moving and using the breath, thus improving mental and physical health/well-being by stress reduction. Given the beneficial multidisciplinary background of mindfulness as a mediator, researchers are striving to create interventions, including efficient stress alleviating and preventive adaptation strategies to daily life stressors among students [ 20 , 21 , 45 , 69 , 72 , 112 , 113 , 114 ]. The interaction between physiological and psychological processes will be a particular interest in this field and require multidisciplinary approaches.…”