Yoga for psycho-spiritual well-being of French professionals

Abstract

INTRODUCTION The mental and psychological health of French professionals is a concern, with high rates of conditions such as anxiety, depression, burnout, and stress. While yoga has been shown to have positive effects on physical, mental, and spiritual health, there is a lack of research on its effects specifically among French professionals. Due to cultural differences, it is important to investigate the potential benefits of yoga for this population and develop culturally-appropriate interventions. LITERARY REVIEW The aim of this literature review study was to evaluate the existing scientific literature on Karma Yoga, with a focus on understanding its potential benefits for promoting human excellence. The review of literature suggests that the application of Karma Yoga can be applied in a variety of settings to promote human excellence, including in the areas of business and work, transformational leadership, moral development, and spirituality. Further, literature review study found that spiritual well-being, mindfulness, emotion regulation, stress, and happiness are closely related and can be affected by various factors such as work-life balance, work demands and personal factors. The research suggests that interventions that focus on holistic well-being, including spiritual well-being, mindfulness, emotion regulation, stress, and happiness may be more effective in promoting overall well-being among professionals. AIMS The three studies aimed to provide a comprehensive examination of the relationship between spiritual health and psychological well-being, the presumption of cross-cultural similarity, and the effectiveness of a yoga-based intervention on these factors. The purpose of first study was to investigate the correlation between spiritual well-being, mindfulness, and emotion regulation among a group of young emerging French professionals. Additionally, the second study aimed to compare and contrast the mindfulness, job satisfaction, and happiness levels, as well as the significance of spirituality and religion, among Indian and French professionals. Furthermore, the third study aimed to assess the impact of yoga-based interventions on the psycho-spiritual well-being of French professionals for a period of 8 weeks, with a subsequent evaluation one month later. METHODS SUBJECTS AND DESIGN The first study used an online cross-sectional survey design to observe the relationship between spiritual health and psychological well-being among a sample of 421 participants recruited from universities in Strasbourg, France. The age range of participants in this study was 18 to 28 years with a mean age of 20.77 years (SD=2.22). The second study used a similar design to test the presumption of cross-cultural similarity among a sample of 214 IT professionals from France and India. The sample from France had a mean age of 42.36 years (SD=10.46 years) and the sample from India had a mean age of 38.25 years (SD=8.68 years).The third study used a two group pre/post-intervention design to examine the effectiveness of a yoga-based intervention on spiritual health and psychological well-being among a sample of 67 participants, with 33 in the yoga group and 34 in the control group. The mean age of the control group was 47.8 (9.5) and the mean age of the yoga group was 50.3 (7.2). ASSESSMENT TOOLS The study utilized measures to evaluate the emotional regulation, mindfulness, spiritual well being, stress, happiness, satisfaction at work and importance of spirituality/religion among professionals. The measures that were used in the study were: The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, The Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI), The Spiritual Well-being Questionnaire (SWBQ), The Perceived Stress Scale, The Subjective Fluctuating Happiness Scale, The Subjective Authentic-Durable Happiness Scale, in addition to assessments of satisfaction at work and the importance of spirituality/religion. DATA EXTRACION AND ANALYSIS All statistical analyses were performed using the statistical package JASP and R Software. Pearson correlations were used to examine the association between the variables of interest. Multiple regression was run to predict the outcome variables based on the predictor variables. The independent samples t-test was used to compare differences between groups and two-way mixed ANOVA was used to analyze the interaction effects between the independent variables. RESULTS The results of three different studies can be summarized as: The first study results indicate that there is a strong positive correlation between self-reported spiritual health and mindfulness. Additionally, the results show a significant association between spiritual health and emotional processes. Moreover, the study found that spiritual dissonance is negatively related to spiritual health and mindfulness. The findings of second study revealed that there were no significant differences in levels of mindfulness, satisfaction at work, fluctuating happiness and authentic-durable happiness between Indian and French IT professionals. Furthermore, the study found that there was a similar pattern of intercorrelations between these variables among the two groups, which could be seen as an indication of cross-cultural agreement. However, the study also found that Indian IT professionals had higher levels of importance placed on religion and spirituality when compared to French IT professionals. The results of the third study suggest that after an 8-week yoga-based training intervention, French professionals experienced a significant reduction in stress levels, an improvement in emotion regulation(reappraisal domain), an increase in mindfulness, an enhancement in spiritual well-being, and an improvement in authentic-durable happiness. CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, the first study suggests that various aspects of spirituality can positively impact the well-being of emerging professionals. The second study emphasizes the need to take into account cross-cultural factors when studying well-being in the workplace, particularly in terms of the significance placed on religion and spirituality. The third study presents evidence for the efficacy of yoga in enhancing psycho-spiritual well-being among French professionals, but additional research is necessary to fully understand the underlying mechanisms and to evaluate other potential methods of measuring well-being.