Yoga is a 5,000-year-old physical mind and body practice. Most present day practices share some variation of yoga poses (asana), breathing exercises (pranayama), relaxation, and meditation. Research indicates that one of yoga’s most powerful effect is to regulate the effect of stress. It increases behaviours associated with well-being – such as healthier eating, improved sleep behaviour – and increases socialisation.
There is also evidence that it decreases behaviours – such as smoking or substance abuse – that are associated with non-communicable diseases. Additional benefits include increased flexibility and strength and enhanced awareness of the body and emotions.
In Africa, the Africa Yoga Project has helped to expand the practice of yoga across the continent. Since 2006, it has educated, empowered and expanded the employability of youth in 15 African countries: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mali, Namibia, Botswana, Nigeria, South Sudan, Ghana and Somalia.
It began when the founder and executive director, Paige Elenson, was on a safari with her family in Kenya and shared handstands and yoga with a team of acrobats. Encouraged by the Kenyan acrobats, Paige came back to teach yoga in Nairobi’s informal settlements where 42% of its population, of 44 million, live below the poverty line.
Paige discovered that one of the root causes of abject poverty was youth unemployment. About 70% of Kenya’s youth are unemployed. She turned this challenge into an opportunity, forming the Africa Yoga Project with Baron Baptiste, an international yoga teacher and trainer. The project now trains youth to teach yoga and is funded mostly by individual donations.
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In 2012, I met Paige at yoga teacher training. I had just finished a research study on a kid’s camp for youth in poverty and children with disabilities using a methodology called “Concept Mapping”. This methodology is what we call mixed method. It uses descriptive techniques – these honour the perceptions and voices of the participants as primary sources of information – and methods that count and quantify data.
I offered to bring my team to Kenya to study the impact of the Africa Yoga Project using the concept mapping method, which is ideal for studying unique, or one of a kind experiences. In July of 2013, we collected data for three Africa Yoga Project studies based on experiences of the yoga teachers, child students and adult students. The research team was a mix of psychologists, doctoral students, a psychiatrist, and seasoned yoga teachers.
The teachers’ top three answers were:
Overall, across the first three studies, the students and teachers identified personal benefits related to health, personal growth, confidence, coping skills, and self-compassion. The teachers and students also reported better relationships and a stronger sense of community.
We also found a type of resiliency we call “Mindful Grit”. Grit is conceptualised as the ability to set and accomplish goals with persistence. This goes beyond the goal setting and persistence found in the grit research by Angela Duckworth and adds a component of self-care and self-compassion that helps make growth and possibility sustainable over time.
Interestingly, though pay and employability were identified as outcomes for the teachers, the well-being outcomes were rated highest. We were surprised. I think that teaching yoga is a job, but for those who work with the Africa Yoga Project, it is more than a job, it’s sharing a practice that has positively impacted each of their lives and that seems to be what matters most to them.
(The author is an Associate Professor, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article here.)
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