Resilience in life indicates one’s ability to keep functioning physically and psychologically, even when negative emotions are experienced. The influence of yoga in improving the resilience of the practitioners have been reported.
Methods: A study was undertaken by WEDO (NGO), Kozhikode, Kerala, India and Patanjali Yoga Research Centre (PYRC), Kozhikode using a questionnaire among a sample of 100 yoga practitioners from PYRC to analyse the effect of yoga practice on the resilience ability of the practitioners. The brief resilience scale (Smith et al, 2008), the characteristics of the respondents such as age, sex, marital status, no. of days of yoga practice/week, and no. of months of yoga practice were included in the questionnaire. The data was analysed as proportion, score, and through statistical tests.
Results: Majority of the respondents have developed their resilience ability in life very much through yoga practice. 80% of them have obtained a total resilience score in the range of 76.7 to 83.3 % of the maximum possible score in the study. 54% of the respondents belong to the high resilience score category, 37% to the medium score category, and only 9% belong to the low score category. Those who engage in yoga practice for more no. of days in a week have higher resilience scores, compared to those who practice for lesser no. of days, with statistically significant difference in the scores. The mean resilience score of married yoga practitioners varies significantly with that of un-married practitioners. However, sex and age of the yoga practitioners did not influence their resilience score significantly. Gradient Boosting Model test showed that among the characteristics, only months of yoga practice exhibited a substantial relative influence (98.26%) on the resilience score. Analysis through the Decision Tree technique showed that individuals practicing yoga for 23.5 months or longer are more likely to have a high resilience score, while those practicing yoga for less than 23.5 months are more likely to have a medium resilience score.
Conclusion: The favourable effect of yoga practice in developing resilience among people, which is helpful to overcome difficulties faced in life, is observed from the study. There exists difference in the level of resilience developed through yoga between people practicing it for lesser no. of days/week, when compared to more no. of days/week. Unmarried yoga practitioners have comparatively more resilience through yoga practice than married people. Irrespective of the sex or age of the practitioners, yoga is capable of developing their resilience ability. Months of yoga practice is the only characteristic having high relative influence on the resilience score. Individuals practicing yoga for 23.5 months or longer are more likely to have a high resilience score, while those practicing yoga for less than 23.5 months are more likely to have a medium resilience score.