Yoga At Work Can Ease Stress
A growing number of employers are offering yoga programs in an effort to reduce their employees stress and boost their mental health, according to research from the Bavarian Health and Food and Safety Authority. Researchers reviewed results from 13 trials around the world, which included data on some 1,300 working participants. They found that while it didn’t appear to influence heart health, the combined data showed that yoga did reduce stress and had a beneficial effect on the workers’ mental health.
Lead author Laura Maria Puerto Valencia was quoted in news reports as saying that it is hard to determine whether the yoga itself was responsible for the benefits seen or whether they were due to a supportive workplace culture at the companies that provided the yoga programs. The team noted that more companies are expanding their approach to occupational health to help avoid employee accidents and injuries as well as to promote mental health. The researchers didn’t quantify the amount of stress reduction that took place among participants in the 13 programs studied but concluded that in addition to easing stress and improving mental health, practicing yoga in the workplace had no apparent negative effects.
Source:
Laura Maria Puerto Valencia et al, “Yoga in the workplace and health outcomes: a systematic review.” Occupational Medicine, March 18, 2019: doi/10.1093/occmed/kqz033
Also in this week’s bulletin:
- Becoming Happier & Less Anxious
- How Coffee Really Affects You
- Recipe: True Food Kitchen’s Good Earth Kale Cobb
