Effect of Yoga and Exercise on Job Burnout and Job Satisfaction on Doctors

Abstract

Yoga occupies an important place in the scheme of spiritual practices. Several health related benefits of yoga has been reported in the literature e.g. Kochar (1972) reported a significant reduction in anxiety and general hostility in a group of forty yoga performers. Udupa (1985) reported to have treated 1007 cases of various stress disorders with a combination of the practice of asana, pranayam and meditation. Michalsen et al. (2005) reported significant reduction in stress, anxiety, fatigue, depression, headache and backache in the yoga performers group as compared to the control group. Verma (2007) in her article Yoga and Health' concluded that yoga is a live art that promote a long healthy life. However, the ultimate goal of yoga is not just to achieve and maintain good health only rather the realization of the self. By realizing the true self, an embodiment of bliss free from the tiant of sim and fear of death, motal individual attains the highest fulfillment ( Adiswaranda, 2004).Saiyadain (2003), Baum and their colleagues (1997), and Martin and their colleagues (1997) are of the view that job burnout and organizational stress basically means environmental factors or stressors such as work overload, role conflict, role ambiguity, and poor working conditions associated with a particular job. Emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment are operational definition of job burnout. Job burnout could be called job depression.Singh and Singh (1992) asked 400 middle level managers to fill out role stress and job anxiety questionnaires. Their results showed that high anxiety employees have positive relationship with role stress. A number of studies have shown that role stress and burnout often leads to a negative reaction towards job and organizations and low degree of organizational commitment (Biswas, 1998). Occasional feelings of frustration, anger, depression, dissatisfaction, and anxiety are normal parts of living and working. But people caught in the burnout cycle usually experience these negative emotions more often until they become chronic. Job burnout symptoms are accompanied by declining performance, withdrawal and interpersonal problems, substance abuse in an attempt to self-medicine, illness and absenteeism, and feelings of meaninglessness (Martin, Poyen, Bouderlique, Gouvemet, Rivet, Disdier, Martinez & Scotto, 1997; Mirvis, Kilpatrick, Pines & Aronson, 1988). The burnout takes on a life of its own. In desperation, the burnout victim may quit one job to seek another. But beginning a new job without first understanding the problem with the first job is a set-up for another disaster. It is easy to unwittingly get into another job with the same problems (Proseer et al., 1999; Shelledy, Mikles, May & Youtsey, 1992).Job satisfaction studies in the United States have their roots in the early explorations of industry's concern with ways to improve productivity (Grunebeig, 1976). One of the first studies to examine the relationship of the physical environment and worker productivity was carried out by Taylor (1911) at the Bethlehem Steelworks. In the late 1920s another important study was conducted at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company in Chicago. What was begun in 1927 as an attempt to identify the relationship between working conditions and physical conditions at the plant, ended with the realization that social factors and worker expectations had the greatest impact on job satisfaction (Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1939). The Hawthorne studies gave way to extensive research on the multiplicity of factors involved in the job Hoppock (1935) raised the notion that it may not be possible to disassociate job satisfaction with other satisfactions in life. In his famous monograph, Job Satisfaction, Hoppock (1935) states that family relationships, health, relative social status in the community, and a multitude of other factors may be just as important as the job itself in determining what we tentatively choose to call satisfaction. …