A Pragmatic Controlled Trial of a Brief Yoga and Mindfulness-Based Program for Psychological and Occupational Health in Education Professionals

Objectives: To examine changes in psychological and occupational wellbeing in education professionals that attended a brief yoga and mindfulness-based program.

Design: Pragmatic controlled trial comparing education professionals that attended a yoga mindfulness-based program (n = 9) to a waitlist control group (n = 22).

Setting: The 3-day program was delivered at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Massachusetts.

Intervention: The 3-day yoga mindfulness program included 5 hours per day of yoga, mindfulness exercises, formal meditation, didactic, and experiential activities.

Main outcome measures: Measures of psychological and occupational wellbeing were completed before (baseline), immediately after (post-program), and two months after the program (follow-up).

Results: Relative to controls (n = 21), the RISE group (n = 9) showed significant improvements in positive affect (p = .033), negative affect (p = .044), mindfulness (p = .001), empowerment (p = .022), self-compassion (p = .001), and work engagement from baseline to post-program. From baseline to follow-up, the RISE group showed significant improvements in stress (p = .008), negative affect (p = .013), mindfulness (p = .001), empowerment (p = .007), and self-compassion (p = .001) compared to the control group.

Conclusions: The yoga mindfulness program was associated with improvements in educators' psychological and occupational wellbeing immediately following and 2-months following the program. Future research with a larger sample size is needed to confirm these results.