Yoga For Resiliency in the military
On January 20th, 2023 our Executive Director, Lauren Turner, had the chance to visit Fort Devens and work with the 854th Engineer Battalion.
As yoga becomes accepted within the military community and its benefits acknowledged, more effort is being made to incorporate yoga on a regular basis.
We were asked to provide a 60 minute beginner-friendly yoga practice focused on resiliency and were excited to take the chance to demonstrate some of the short term benefits with a group, who we expected would be new to yoga.
The protocols used in the session were developed by a national organization, Warriors At Ease, who trains instructors on best practices when working within the military community.
The evidence-based techniques included in class, such as certain breathing practices, help individuals to self-regulate and can rapidly bring the nervous system back to homeostasis. When practiced regularly, this can help offset the impact of prolong exposure to combat and operational stress, and increase resiliency.
“It relaxed my whole temperament.”
Following class we surveyed the group and collected 32 responses from the group of 44 participants.
Experience with yoga
The group’s experience with yoga varied, with over a third of respondents having practiced “occasionally”. As expected, a 56% majority of our survey respondents were brand new to practicing yoga.
32 respondents of 44 participants
Attitudes towards yoga
A single class of yoga is not enough to support the longer term benefits of mind-body practices, which is one of the reasons encouraging participants to return is important. One-time touch points present the opportunity to shift opinions towards yoga, especially those who have not tried it before.
In our follow-up survey, we asked respondents who had either never tried yoga (or had tried, but did not enjoy) on a scale from 1-4 how likely they’d try yoga again. A “1” indicated they “would not try again” and 4 indicated the “definitely would try yoga again”.
The survey results were encouraging; we found 95% were likely to try again, with 55% reporting they "would definitely try yoga again".
“This was the first time I’ve ever felt relaxed or stretched or even at peace since I deployed.”
