No description available.

Master's thesis -- State University of New York College at Cortland, 2008 -- Department of Kinesiology. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-61) and abstract.

Yoga har blivit allt vanligare idag och allt fler nya studior öppnar. Mitt syfte med den här uppsatsen har därför varit att skapa större förståelse varför vissa människor väljer att göra yoga. Metoden som har tillämpats är kvalitativ. Jag har gjort semistrukturerade intervjuer med sex deltagare: tre yogalärare/instruktörer och tre deltagare på yogakurs. Resultatet visar att respondenterna gör yoga främst för att minska stress i vardagen, för att det ger inre kontakt och mer livskvalité. Med inre kontakt menas att de får mer kontakt med sina känslor och tankar och mer livskvalitet betyder att de anser att de mår bättre och känner sig mer positiva i vardagen. Det som är mest framträdande i studien är respondenternas berättelser om dagens stressepidemi i vårt västerländska samhälle som gör att det är svårt att få ihop livspusslet på alla plan. Jag har främst analyserat intervjuerna med hjälp av Hartmut Rosas teorier om modernitet, acceleration, identitet och alienation. Min slutsats är att Rosa (2014) har rätt i sina teorier om att vi lever i ett samhälle som präglas av vad Rosa kallar den autodynamiska (tekniska, sociala, personliga) accelerationen, vilken skapar alienation (förfrämligande). Han menar även att vi sliter med våra allt längre att-göra-listor, och att vi hinner göra allt mindre av det vi verkligen vill fast vi lever i västerländsk frihet. Rosa hävdar att vi känner oss vilsna i många avseenden i livet och att vi glömmer vad vi anser viktigt och vem vi vill vara. Det resulterar i stress och utmattning och han menar också att dagens höga acceleration gör att vi letar efter en avsiktlig broms för att dämpa vår vardagliga stress. Yoga tycks vara det för respondenterna i min studie. / Yoga exists in many different fields today and many new yoga studios open. My purpose has been to create a greater understanding due to why people choose to practice yoga. Throughout this text, I ask: what motives there are to practice yoga? What experiences does yoga give in relation to the rest of your life? Could there be any reasons in our Swedish western society to why people would like to practice yoga? Is yoga spirituality/religion? The method that has been used is a qualitative study with semi-structured interviews with six persons, three yoga teachers/instructors and three people participating in yoga classes. The result shows that the respondents practice yoga mostly to lower their everyday stress level, to get better contact with themselves and increased their life quality. The most central part of this study is the respondent's stories concerning today's stress epidemic in our western society which makes it hard to balance the life puzzle on different levels. I have foremost analyzed the climate in today's society with Hartmut Rosas theories about modernity, acceleration, identity, and alienation. My conclusion is according to Rosas (2014) theories that we have ended up in the autodynamic (technical, social, personal) acceleration that creates alienation (estrangement). We work hard with our to-do-lists that keep on getting longer and have less and less time to do what we actually want even though we have our western freedom. This results in a society where people feel lost in all parts of life and we forget what we value and who we want to be which results in stress and exhaustion. Rosa (2014) argues that the high acceleration in today's society makes people look for an intentional brake and yoga seems to be this for the respondents.

Abstract Employees experience workplace stress that can affect their health resulting in chronic diseases such as diabetes, stress, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases. Stress also contributes to staff presentism, absenteeism, and high turnover rate. The employee wellness program (EWP) yoga class at a metropolitan teaching hospital has not been evaluated for its effectiveness in employee stress reduction and improvement in employee health. The practice focus question for this project explored employees' perception of the impact of a metropolitan teaching hospital's EWP yoga class on their stress reduction and health promotion activities. The theoretical framework for this project is Lazarus' transactional model of stress and coping. This model suggests that individuals assess the stressor and find strategies for coping with the stress as it relates to them and their environment. The evidence that guided this project included a comprehensive literature review and the analysis of data retrieved from semi structured interviews with 20 participants in the yoga class who responded to an open invitation. Audiotaped interviews with the participants were analyzed and coded for common themes and revealed that participating in the EWP yoga program helped to reduce their perceived stress and improve their mental and physical well-being. The findings of this project were used to inform organizational leadership and may provide opportunities to evaluate the current yoga program regarding employee stress reduction, improving healthy activities, expansion of the program to other work sites within the organization, maintaining a healthy workforce, and reducing health care costs.