Influence of the Practice of Yoga on Positive and Negative Affect: A Study

Abstract

Positive affect refers to one’s propensity to experience positive emotions, while negative affect indicates feeling negative emotions in life. Studies have reported that yoga can improve the positive affect and reduce the negative affect among people. In this context, this study has attempted to analyse the influence of yoga on positive and negative affect among 100 practitioners using a questionnaire containing the tool to work out Positive and Negative Affect and the characteristics of the yoga practitioners, namely, sex, age, marital status, whether they had psychological problem earlier, whether they did yoga before joining the present yoga class, and period of yoga practice in the present yoga class. The results indicate the influence of yoga in helping people to achieve more positive affect and less of negative affect in their lives. Statistically significant influence of not having any psychological problem earlier, experience in yoga practice before joining the present yoga class, and higher period of yoga practice in the present class in getting higher Positive Affect score, Negative Affect score, and total Positive and Negative Affect score by the yoga practitioners is evident from the study. However, statistically significant difference was not observed in these scores between yoga practitioners based on their sex, age and marital status. Suitable measures should be adopted by Governments, social organizations etc. to motivate people to practice yoga and achieve better wellbeing in their lives.