Restorative Yoga for Stress Reduction in Hospital Workers

Stress is defined as the inability to cope with a real or imagined threat to one's mental, physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing, which results in a series of physiological responses and adaptations (Fauci et al, 2011). Although some degree of stress in daily life is anticipated and unavoidable, the importance of stress reduction is critical for overall wellness and disease prevention. Certain individuals and professions are more prone to experiencing work-related stress. Hospital staff report high levels of stress related to the complexity of caring for acutely ill patients (Ponte & Koppel, 2015). One way of optimizing stress management and reducing chronic stress is through restorative yoga therapy. Hospital workers from a southern California hospital were invited to participate in a 6-week intervention phase of weekly 75-minute restorative yoga therapy sessions with the end goal of decreasing their stress. Stress was measured using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS) during the intervention and a post-intervention satisfaction survey. The findings indicated that restorative yoga therapy is an effective means for hospital workers to minimize the stress response.;Keywords: Stress, stress reduction, yoga, yoga therapy, restorative yoga, employee wellness, hospital workers.