Psychological benefits of yoga in industrial workers

BACKGROUND: The industrial workers are exposed to stress and strain due to the tough nature of their duties. There is a need to incorporate simple, cost effective, and easily implementable measures in the industries to tackle this menace of stress. Yoga has been considered a suitable candidate for this job. Hence this study was undertaken to evaluate the psychological benefits of yoga in workers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Four hundred healthy young general duty workers were enrolled for this study and made into four matched groups of 100 each. One group was given regular Yoga practice in the morning, another group was given regular physical training in the morning, third group was exposed to regular physical training in the morning and Yoga in the evening, and the last group was exposed to neither of them. All were assessed for their psychological state at base line, 4 weeks and at 12 weeks using specified scales. The findings were statistically analysed. RESULTS: Yoga was found to have more beneficial psychological effect comparable to physical training. However maximum benefit was obtained when Yoga was combined with PT. CONCLUSION: Yoga has got positive psychological benefits in general duty workers when practiced regularly. The benefits are enhanced when Yoga is combined with PT.