Yogic Intervention for Coping with Distress

Abstract

Introduction: The wide prevalence of stress among the corporate workforce and its adverse impacts on employee health and work performance is skyrocketing. This warrants assessing efficacy of complementary and alternative approaches like yoga for stress management and health promotion. Aim: This study was primarily aimed at assessing the efficacy of Integrated Yogic Intervention (IYI) on Physical Distress (PD), Emotional Distress (ED) and Total Distress (TD) and predicting nature of relationship between PD and ED after the IYI. Materials and Methods: A 45-day IYI was administered among 75 corporate personnel (60 males and 15 females with mean age 31.52±8.22 and 27.83±4.37 years respectively) by creating a randomised control groups- Experimental Group (EG) and Control Group (CG) with same size and gender ratio (75 members in each group with 60 males and 15 females). A mixed factorial ANVOA was used to check intra and inter group differences by treating baseline and after distress of participants measured by male and female versions of Cornell Medical Index Health Questionnaires (CMIHQs). Results: Comparisons of means between EG and CG by computing unpaired t-test showed significant reduction (p<0.001) in PD, ED and TD of the male practitioners and ED of the female practitioners whereas, reduction in the female practitioners after mean PD and TD was significant at p <0.01 as compared to their controls. Comparison of intra group means by computing paired t-test in EG showed significant reduction (p<0.001) in after mean distress (PD, ED and TD) in case of both male and female practitioners. Significant association (p< 0.01) found between after PD and ED of the participants revealed ED as the predictor of PD. Conclusion: Integrated Yogic Intervention may be used as an inexpensive alternative to moderate distress and improve psychosomatic health of workforce in contemporary corporate organisations. The emotional health is to be bettered to empower somatic health.

Keywords

• corporate workforce
• emotional distress
• health promotion
• integrated yogic intervention
• physical distress