Benefits, barriers and determinants of practicing yoga: A cross sectional study from Kathmandu, Nepal

Background: It has been widely believed that practicing yoga helps to improve individuals’ mental and physical health. However, the proportion of people practicing yoga is not encouraging. Objective: This study investigates the determinants, motivations, benefits and barriers to practicing yoga. Mat...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hari Khanal, Uttam Khanal
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2021-01-01
Series:Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0975947621000097
Description
Summary:Background: It has been widely believed that practicing yoga helps to improve individuals’ mental and physical health. However, the proportion of people practicing yoga is not encouraging. Objective: This study investigates the determinants, motivations, benefits and barriers to practicing yoga. Material and methods: This study is based on a cross sectional survey of 875 individuals in a face-to-face interviews conducted from February to April 2019 in Kathmandu, Nepal. The interviews were conducted using a semi-structured questionnaire, and the statistical analysis of the collected data was done using SPSSV20. Results: We find that females, older people, people with access to health education and internet, associated with social organization, and receiving yoga-related training are more likely to practice yoga. Major reported benefits of yoga include improvement in body flexibility and balance, a decrease in the level of stress, improvement in the quality of life, body weight maintenance, and improvement in immunity power. Conclusion: Given that most respondents have been benefited from practicing yoga, we recommend people to incorporate yoga into their daily routine.
ISSN:0975-9476