Long term effect of yoga on anxiety, depression, and distress in school teachers

Abstract

Background: Some teachers are continued to teach perhaps with psychotic or psychoneurological illness. Also pervious research studies found that stress factors and professional burnout are found to be high in school teachers. Long term yoga practices are found to have effect in reducing the anxiety and depression levels. Aim: To study the effect of long term yoga practice on psychological and cognitive variables in school teachers. Methodology: 56 school teachers from secondary residing in Bangalore were recruited for this study. 28 teachers (12 male) were regular practitioner of yoga since 28 teachers (10 male) who were having no exposure to yoga were taken in control group. There was no significant difference in change, education, gender and social-economic status in between group. Result: Significantly less anxiety and distress was found in yoga group than control group. There was decreased depression and fatigue and improving sleep quality in yoga group which were not statistically significant. Conclusion: This study suggest that long term practice of yoga helps in reducing stress and anxiety in school teachers which is now a day a common problem. Yoga should be the part of occupational curriculum for school teachers. Thus it helps the teachers to reducing the stress levels and will helpful to the students for better guidance and understanding