Professor Rahul Garg said yoga should be included in the higher education curriculum. Yoga practitioners had “lower stress, anxiety and depression” during the lockdown imposed due to the Covid-19 outbreak last year as compared to non-practitioners, an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi study has found.
The study, titled ‘Yoga an effective strategy for self-management of stress-related problems and wellbeing during Covid-19 lockdown: A cross-sectional study’, has been published in the journal ‘Plos One’. It was carried out by a team of scientists from the National Resource Centre for Value Education in Engineering (NRCVEE) at IIT-D.
The research team included Dr Pooja Sahni, NRCVEE; Nitesh, NRCVEE; Dr Kamlesh Singh, associate professor at Humanities and Social Sciences Department in IIT-Delhi; and Prof Rahul Garg, head at NRCVEE.
The study was carried out on 668 adults between April 26 and June 8 last year. The participants were grouped as yoga practitioners, other spiritual practitioners and non-practitioners. Yoga practitioners were broken down into the sub-categories of long-term, mid-term and beginners.
“Long-term practitioners reported higher personal control and lower illness concern in contracting Covid-19 than the mid-term or beginner groups. Long-term and mid-term practitioners also reported perceiving lower emotional impact of Covid-19 and lower risk in contracting Covid-19 than the beginners,” IIT-D said in a statement.
The study found that long-term practitioners had “highest peace of mind, lowest depression and anxiety, with no significant difference in the mid-term and the beginner group”.
Professor Rahul Garg said yoga should be included in the higher education curriculum.
