EFFECTIVENESS OF YOGA INTERVENTION TO REDUCE PERCEIVED STRESS AMONG CORPORATE EXECUTIVES

Abstract

Yoga has been practised as a holistic approach to health and human greatness since the dawn of humanity. As a result, business interest in Yoga has risen dramatically, particularly in wealthy countries. Each year, the United States spends $5.7 billion on yoga lessons and goods (Bhandari et al., 2010). According to research conducted at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre's Stress Reduction Clinic, yoga combined with meditation can actually reduce stress and improve work performance and distress has been identified as a cause in approximately 90% of doctor visits and illnesses (Tesovic, 2019). In this research the yogic intervention, which included selected yogic postures, breathing techniques (Pranayama) and guided meditations, was given to 140 corporate executives (91 men and 49 women) from The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India Ahmedabad branch over the course of 90 days. Convenient sampling method was adopted for selection of the subjects. The perceived stress scale was used for the assessment of the level of stress and the paired sample t-test was calculated. ‘t’-value was 12.786, which was significant at 0.01 level. The result showed a positive significant effect of the yogic intervention to reduce perceived Stress, Anxiety and depression. This study found that yoga can improve individual and organisational health, harmony, morale, work motivation, commitment, performance and productivity