A 3-Day residential yoga-based program improves education professionals’ psychological and occupational health in a single arm trial

• Published in: Explore (New York, N.Y.) N.Y.), 2021-11, Vol.17 (6), p.513-520
• Main Authors: Dyer, Natalie L., Borden, Sara, Dusek, Jeffery A., Khalsa, Sat Bir S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Burnout; Burnout, Professional; Educators; Humans; Meditation; Mindfulness; Mindfulness - methods; Occupational Health; Psychological; Stress; Stress, Psychological - therapy; Yoga; Yoga - psychology
• ISSN: 1550-8307; 1878-7541
• DOI: 10.1016/j.explore.2020.08.018

•Urban education professionals such as teachers and administrators often experience workplace-related stress and burnout, putting them at risk for health problems.•A brief 3-day yoga-based program improved multiple measures of urban educators’ psychological and occupational health.•Continuation of the yoga-based practices after the program was associated with improvements in multiple outcome measures at follow-up.•The participants rated the program as feasible to attend. This study examined changes in psychological and occupational health in urban education professionals after attending a brief yoga-based program. Education professionals from the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) who were attending a residential 3-day yoga-based program at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health were recruited to participate in the study. Measures of psychological and occupational health and health-related behaviors were completed before (baseline), after (post), and two months after the program (follow-up). Paired samples t-tests were used to compare scores between time points. At post, participants (N = 74) showed improvements in stress, resilience, affect, mindfulness, empowerment, self-compassion, satisfaction with life, work engagement, burnout, exercise, and vegetable intake (all p values < 0.05) compared to baseline. At the follow-up (N = 33), showed improvements in resilience, affect, mindfulness, empowerment, self-compassion, work engagement, and burnout (all p values < 0.05) compared to baseline. There were significant correlations between the degree of home practice of the skills and techniques learned in the program and improvements in multiple measures of psychological and occupational health at follow-up (all p values < 0.05). These findings suggest that the yoga-based program improves psychological and occupational health and healthy behaviors in education professionals immediately following the program and up to two-months following the program, however, more data with larger sample sizes are needed to confirm sustained benefits over the longer term.