NCT03856892

Breath, Stress and Health: a Biocultural Study of Hatha Yoga Practice

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 97 (actual)
• Sponsor: Emory University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This study aims to contribute uniquely to stress, longevity, and mental health research in two ways: by identifying clear protocols of breath-based yoga-meditative practice based on original materials; that are subsequently assessed with established scientific stress, biochemical immunity and longevity markers, and validated psychological measures that relate to mental health.

Detailed description

This study aims to contribute uniquely to stress, longevity, and mental health research in two ways: by identifying clear protocols of breath-based yoga-meditative practice based on original materials; that are subsequently assessed with established scientific stress markers across the sympathetic-adreno-medullar (SAM) axis, biochemical immunity and longevity markers, and validated psychological measures as related to mental health. The study couples emic perspectives from the traditional yoga knowledge base, both textual and practice, with empirical measures from science as an opportunity to bridge these worlds as a first known study of hatha yoga to be tackled by the means and methods of biocultural anthropology. It therefore highlights the importance of context and detail in terms of assessing human behavioral practices, where accuracy in terms of definitions, technique detail, and original purported intentions and outcomes are addressed as relevant when measuring and explaining empirical outcomes under modern research mixed methods.

Conditions

• Stress, Physiological
• Stress, Psychological

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	High Dose Yoga	Participants engage in an intensive full yoga practice of hatha breath-based practices and inner meditative techniques along with body-based asana. Intensive level uses breath, management of abdomen, inner focus in all practices. The "high dose" of yoga is an interpretation of the Translational Model of Yoga (TMY) and Yoga Process formula, both developed in this study's cultural research: a systematized psycho-physical yoga method of Hatha Zone (HZ) focus (below-navel, exhale, inner focus), incorporating key components of practice-focus-surrender (PFS) approach and repeat-engage-trust (RET) elements.
OTHER	Medium Dose Yoga	The "medium dose" of yoga is a regular practice of primarily body-posture training with minimal reference to the breath, but with a longer period of time duration in training prior to intervention commencement. Participants have 5 months of pre-training before initiating the intervention.

Timeline

• Start date: 2019-01-11
• Primary completion: 2019-09-17
• Completion: 2019-09-17
• First posted: 2019-02-27
• Last updated: 2023-10-06

Locations

1 site across 1 country: India