Mindful yoga : an evaluation of a stress-reduction intervention for stressed adults

This study will attempt to integrate mindfulness meditation and yoga to take advantage of the benefits of both interventions and the popularity of yoga, proposing a pilot of a mindful yoga intervention. The second purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of mindful yoga at increasing mindfulness, as measured by the Mindfulness Awareness Attention Scale, and to assess mindfulness as the mechanism of change through which well-being is enhanced. One hundred adults, who are yoga and meditation beginners and between the ages of 35 and 45, would be recruited from the community to participate in this study. The study utilizes a walking group control and a mindful yoga intervention group. Before treatment condition effects would be assessed, a one-way ANOVA would be conducted with the pre-test outcome scores as the dependent variable and treatment group as the independent variable to assess potential pre-test differences. It is not expected that the two groups will differ significantly at baseline, so it is expected that the ANOVA will not be significant. In order to investigate possible differences between participants on the five dependent variables (satisfaction with life, perceived stress, blood pressure, medical symptom checklist, mindfulness awareness) a repeated measures MANOVA would be conducted with one between-subjects factor and one-within subjects factor. The present study predicts that increases in mindfulness will mediate the effect of treatment on perceived stress, satisfaction with life, physical symptoms, and blood pressure (measures of well-being). In order to analyze this effect, change scores will be created for the mindfulness and the well-being outcome measures for the change from pretest to posttest. While there is limited research supporting this integration, both yoga and mindfulness interventions have shown to be beneficial for the reduction of stress and the enhancement of various measures of well-being (Grossman et al., 2004; Baer, 2003). It is predicted that mindfulness will mediate the relationship between treatment and increase in measures of well-being. Support of this hypothesis indicates that the mindful yoga intervention will likely increase mindfulness, and it will provide further empirical evidence that mindfulness is the therapeutic factor responsible for enhancing well-being.