| Physical inactivity is one of the main causes of major noncommunicable diseases and contributes substantially to the global burden of disease, death and disability. To reverse the trend towards inactivity, it is important to promote physical activities with low participation barrier and numerous benefits to encourage sedentary individuals to become physically active. Yoga has been increasingly popular and practiced as a low-to-moderate intensity physical activity in recent years. Yoga originated in India more than 5000 years ago and its principle is to achieve the integration of body, mind, and spirit. Growing evidence suggests the beneficial effects of Hatha yoga on various ailments, yet potential long-term effects of yoga on health are under-researched. Interpretation of and comparisons across many existing studies are limited by methodological problems. The current study aims to investigate the effects of yoga on physical and mental health quantitatively and qualitatively with the mixed methods approach.;Study One, a quantitative study, was conducted to investigate the physiological and psychological effects of a 12-week Hatha yoga program. A total of 173 participants (aged 34-71) participated in this study, of which 87 participants were assigned to the yoga group and 86 participants were assigned to the control group. The yoga group participated in the 12-week of yoga program (1-hour session/week), whereas the control group maintained their lifestyle as usual. Outcome variables of the study included metabolic risk factors, physical activity level, health-related physical fitness, cortisol level, psychological variables, and health-related quality of life. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were used in the data treatment. The primary analysis compared the changes of the outcome variables from baseline to post-intervention between the yoga and control groups of the whole study sample. The two subgroup analyses focused on samples with and without metabolic syndrome, respectively.;A total of 154 participants completed the study (yoga, n = 79; control, n = 75), the attrition rate of the overall sample was 11.0%. The attendance rate of those who completed the study was 93.6% for 12 sessions. No adverse effects were reported. Results of Study One revealed that the yoga intervention program has produced significantly beneficial effects on some metabolic risk factors including waist circumference, fasting blood glucose, triglyceride and metabolic syndrome z score, health-related physical fitness, general health perceptions domain and social functioning domain of health-related quality of life (p < 0.05). However, results did not indicate any significant effects of the yoga program on physical activity level, cortisol level, and any of the psychological variables. Results of the two subgroup analyses further suggested that yoga participants with metabolic syndrome (MetS) experienced more improvement in terms of the number of outcome variables than yoga participants without MetS. MetS yoga participants also experienced stronger beneficial effects than non-MetS yoga participants when the same outcome variables were compared.;Study Two, a qualitative study, was conducted to explore the perceived benefits and barriers of regular yoga practice and participation pattern. Eighty-six participants (aged 25-66), consisted of individuals who have practiced yoga for at least three months (EXP, n = 42) and individuals who had never practiced yoga (NIL, n = 44), were recruited and assigned to participate in one of the 14 discussion group sessions (on average six participants in a group). The researcher facilitated each 1-hour discussion session based on the guiding questions which related yoga practice and health related issues.;Findings of Study Two indicated that motivations for initiating yoga practice included: participants' concerns on physical health and emotions, yoga information from mass media, relatives, friends, and health professionals. Perceived health benefit was the major reason for EXP participants to continue their yoga practice. Regardless of the yoga experiences, Study Two participants addressed a wide range of perceived health benefits. They believed that yoga practice could improve their physical health by having beneficial effects on different body systems, promoting physically active lifestyle, preventing diseases, and enhancing some physical fitness components. Participants also found yoga practice beneficial to various aspect of mental health, particularly stress reduction and senses of relaxation, calmness, and vitality. Differences in perceived barriers of yoga practice between participants with different yoga experiences were noted, with NIL participants perceiving more barriers than EXP participants. NIL participants had a number of negative impressions of yoga, whereas EXP participants encountered some obstacles in continuing their yoga practices.;By incorporating the results of both quantitative and qualitative studies, findings of this study enhances the understanding of the effects of Hatha yoga intervention on health and suggests that individuals practiced yoga regularly would experience a wide range of health benefits. Together with low-to-moderate intensity feature of yoga, sedentary individuals can establish a more physical active lifestyle through yoga and benefit from it. By understanding the reasons for discouraging individuals from yoga practice, more comprehensive and integrated information of yoga practice is needed to reduce the participation barrier and promote this healthy activity.;Keywords: Yoga, physical activity, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular, BMI, focus group, stress.. |
