Yoga and Meditation at Work Helps Reduce Stress

I love Yoga! I practice twice a week. So this is awesome. Findings in the journal Health Education & Behavior reveal doing a little yoga and meditation everyday during lunch can help people reduce stress at work.

Participants attended one-hour weekly group meetings during lunch and practiced 20 minutes of meditation and yoga per day at their desks. After six weeks, program participants reported that they were more aware of external stressors, they felt less stressed by life events, and they fell asleep more easily than did a control group that did not experience the intervention.

“Because chronic stress is associated with chronic disease, I am focusing on how to reduce stress before it has a chance to contribute to disease,” said Maryanna Klatt, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of clinical allied medicine at Ohio State.

“My interest is to see whether or not we can get people to reduce their health care utilization because they’re less stressed. I want to deliver something low cost at the work site, something practical that can be sustained, that can help reduce health care costs,” Klatt said.

It’s weird for me though. If I’m too stressed I can’t do Yoga. I can’t focus. But I better find a way to chill out, because Dr. Fuhrman insists reducing negative stress is an important of a long healthy life. My bad!

Via Newswise.

Image credit: BrittneyBush