Examining the Use of Props for Sustainability of Yoga Practice With University Undergraduates

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Abstract

Even after the COVID-19 pandemic, college students are reporting rising rates of psychological distress. Yoga has been proposed as a low-cost intervention to assist with mental health. However, there is a lack of research on how best to support students learning challenging yoga postures. We examined the impact of using props to learn yoga with 220 university undergraduates. Results showed significant impacts in participants’ reporting the benefit of using props for more moderately difficult poses (t3.368 = , P=0.001 ) and advanced poses (t 3.033=, P=0.002 ), but no significant difference for utilizing props for a less demanding pose. An outcome of overall satisfaction, a change in variance (0.347), can be explained by the u prop usage with three poses.

Authors

• Steven Haberlin, University of Central Florida

• Shiva Jahani, University of Central Florida