Abstract
Background:
Yoga practice is becoming increasingly popular around the world, yet little is known regarding why people adopt the practice of yoga or how their reasons for practice change with continued practice. Furthermore, whether those who practice different types of yoga have different motives remains unknown.
Methods:
To address these issues, the authors conducted a national cross-sectional online survey of 1,702 yoga practitioners in Germany, asking about demographic information and motives for initiating and continuing yoga practice.
Results:
The most common primary reasons for starting yoga were relaxation (26.6%) and prevention (25.5%), which were also the most common secondary reasons. Nine hundred and forty-one (55.3%) reported a different primary reason for maintaining than for adopting yoga practice. Prevention (38.4%) and spirituality (26.4%) were the most commonly reported primary reasons for maintaining yoga practice. More highly educated participants and those practicing longer than 5 years at the time of the survey were more likely to have reported a different current primary reason for yoga practice than that for which they started practicing.
Conclusions:
These results shed light on yoga's appeal to novices and regular practitioners, with important implications for making yoga appealing to beginners as well as promoting the practice as a long-term lifestyle behavior.
Yoga practices are becoming increasingly popular around the world. Although often regarded as a physical health practice, yoga's roots are deeply philosophical and spiritual. 1 Indeed, yoga is often considered a holistic system for improving mind, body, and spirit. 2 Yoga practice has been demonstrated to provide many benefits, including enhancing self-regulation, resilience, mood, well-being, and quality of life and reducing stress. 3,4 Furthermore, yoga has been shown to be efficacious in treating many health conditions, 5,6 including pain and depression. 7,8 Thus, people may turn to yoga for many and varied reasons.
Little empirical data are currently available regarding why people adopt the practice of yoga. With the exception of one national study conducted in the United States, 9 data on motivations for practice come primarily from focus groups and small or select samples. These studies demonstrate that people seek out yoga for multiple reasons. For example, 290 people participating in a yoga class in Texas, responding to a question regarding why they were beginning or coming back to yoga, reported many reasons, including general wellness (81%), physical exercise (80%), stress management (73%), seeking a spiritual experience (37%), alleviate a health condition (28%), personal recommendation (25%), illness prevention (23%), other (20%), seeking a hobby (18%), social interaction (16%), and doctor recommendation (5%). 10 In a focus group of community yoga practitioners, common reasons given for adopting yoga included to relieve stress, rehabilitate an injury, or become more flexible. 11 A survey of young adult cancer survivors who used yoga (n = 286) found that they practiced for flexibility (96.7%), relaxation (94.5%), peace (81.3%), happiness (68.1%), depression/anxiety relief (56%), spirituality (45.1%), pain relief (42.9%), weight control (42.9%), and control of side effects (27.5%). 12 The nationally representative National Health Interview Survey also assessed motivations for yoga use but did not include yoga-specific motives. 13
The abovementioned U.S. survey of 516 yoga practitioners 9 not only noted many reasons for beginning practice but also found evidence that yoga practitioners' motivations for practicing often change over time. Practitioners reported they had initially adopted yoga practice primarily for exercise and stress relief, but reported many other reasons, including flexibility, getting into shape, and depression/anxiety relief. Nearly two-thirds of practitioners reported having changed their primary reason for practicing and the top changed primary reason was spirituality. That study suggested that most people initiate yoga practice for exercise and stress relief, but for many, spirituality becomes their primary motive for maintaining practice. Preliminary evidence suggests that the length of time someone practices yoga contributes to benefits of the practice. 14 Thus, understanding changes in motivation to practice may be important for helping people to maintain their practice over the long-term.
In the present study, the authors examined motivations for adopting and maintaining yoga practice in a national sample in a country other than the United States. They were particularly interested in shifts in motives, which are generally regarded as an important aspect of health behavior change, in which people move from the motives that drive them to adopt a new behavior to the long-term maintenance of that behavior. 15,16 Identifying why people begin practicing yoga and why they continue—and how these motives change—may shed light on the factors that appeal to novices and to regular practitioners, with important implications for making yoga practice a long-term lifestyle behavior.
The authors were also interested in whether those who practice different types of yoga have different motives for their practice. Yoga has many different traditions and styles, each with distinct qualities and mixtures of core components, including postures (asanas), breathing practices (pranayama), and meditation or relaxation, 3,17,18 and the particular style of yoga practiced may serve or emphasize different motives. Understanding more about what motivates people to begin practicing yoga may provide useful avenues for more effective dissemination of this healthful activity. Furthermore, understanding motivation for continuing this practice could help individuals to maintain their practice, which could have wide-ranging public health effects. 19,20
Method
Design
A national cross-sectional anonymous online survey was conducted using the online platform SoSci Survey. Before conducting the survey, ethics approval was gained from the Ethics Committee of the University of Duisburg-Essen (approval number: 15-6607-BO). Participants were recruited by e-mails sent to the contact person of national (i.e., registered in Germany) yoga teachers' associations, yoga studios, and the Yoga Conference Germany, as well as through Facebook. A total of 4 yoga teachers' associations, 3 congress organizers, and 145 yoga studios were contacted by e-mail (all yoga studios for which an e-mail address was available) and asked to send the link of the survey to their members or customers. Calls were posted on Facebook yoga groups. Inclusion criteria were at least 18 years of age and current yoga practice. The survey collected sociodemographic data on age, gender, marital status, education, and employment status besides characteristics of and motivations for yoga practice. Marital status was queried as: “Your marital status”: offering the answer categories: single, living with a partner, married, divorced, separated, widowed. Education was assessed by asking: “What is your highest educational attainment?” (categories: not yet completed (student), left school without graduation, “Hauptschule” degree/“Volksschule” degree, “Realschule” degree/, “mittlere Reife”, “Abitur”/“Fachabitur” (without subsequent studies), “Abitur”/“Fachabitur” with uncompleted studies, University/University of Applied Science degree, other). “Abitur” is comparable with the U.S. high school diploma and is the prerequisite to study at a university. Employment status was assessed by asking: “Are you currently employed?” (categories: full-time, part-time, occasionally/irregular, unemployed, retired at regular retirement age, retired early for health reasons, house keeper, student/trainee, other).
Furthermore, health-related data were collected but are not included in this analysis.
Yoga practice characteristics
The study population included 1,702 male and female yoga practitioners, ages 18 and older, residing in Germany in 2018. Participants were asked whether they were certified yoga teachers or not, what yoga style they were primarily practicing (only one style could be chosen), and what additional styles they were practicing (if any). They were further asked how long ago they had started practicing yoga. The survey assessed the average frequency (times per week or month) and duration (in minutes) of yoga practice under supervision by a yoga teacher and at home. Overall practice frequency was calculated as minutes per week.
Reasons for adopting and maintaining yoga practice
Participants were asked why they had originally started yoga practice and were given a list of potential reasons from which they could choose one option: (1) prevention/health promotion, (2) treating a health issue, (3) spirituality, (4) physician's or therapist's advice, (5) relaxation, (6) get fit/get into shape, (7) current popularity of yoga, (8) looking for a hobby, (9) socializing with other practitioners, (10) monetary incentive from their health insurance, (11) advice from friends or family, and (12) other reasons (free text option offered). Then, participants could give any additional reasons for starting yoga where they could choose as many options from an identical list as needed. Using the same list of options, participants were then asked to choose one primary reason for currently maintaining yoga practice and then asked to endorse as many additional reasons as desired.
Statistical analyses
Analyses were conducted for all participants who completed the survey. Sociodemographic and yoga-related data were expressed as means, standard deviations, and range or frequencies and percentages as appropriate. Reasons for yoga practice were expressed as frequencies and percentages. Using forward stepwise multiple logistic regression analyses models, predictors were calculated for changing the reason for continuing yoga (i.e., giving a different primary reason for maintaining than for starting yoga). Using comparable models, predictors were analyzed for the primary reason for maintaining yoga practice. Only those reasons that were reported by at least 100 participants were included in these analyses. p-Values were set at ≤0.05, and adjusted odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were computed for all significant predictors. Potential predictors included the sociodemographic characteristics of age, gender, marital status, education, and employment, and the yoga-related characteristics of primary yoga style, age when starting yoga practice, and years of yoga practice.
Results
Participants' characteristics
The survey was completed by a total of 1,702 predominantly female participants (Table 1). Most participants had at least a secondary education and currently employed. More than half of them were certified yoga teachers. Sivananda Yoga/Yoga Vidya (a German yoga tradition based on the teachings of Swami Sivananda and Swami Vishnu-Devananda), Ashtanga Yoga, Iyengar Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, and traditional Hatha Yoga were the most commonly practiced yoga styles (Table 1); 1,516 (85.6%) practiced more than one yoga style. Participants practiced for 12.72 ± 9.95 years on average; yoga was practiced for a mean of 84.81 ± 98.58 min under supervision and for a mean of 166.26 ± 174.42 min per week at home.
Sociodemographic Characteristics of Participants
More than one additional yoga style per participant possible.
Reasons for yoga practice
The primary reasons and secondary reasons for adopting and maintaining yoga are shown in Table 2. The most common reasons for starting yoga were relaxation (26.6%) and prevention (25.5%), which also were the most common secondary reasons. Of the 1,702 participants, 941 (55.3%) reported a different primary reason for maintaining than for adopting yoga practice. Participants with higher education and those practicing longer than 5 years at the time of the survey were more likely to have reported a different current primary reason for yoga practice than that for which they started practicing (Table 3). Prevention (38.4%) and spirituality (26.4%) were the most commonly reported primary reasons for maintaining yoga practice. The number of participants reporting spirituality as their primary reason for maintaining a practice was more than twice as high as those who reported it as their reason for beginning yoga practice (more than doubled from 11.4%). Other reasons, especially treating a health issue (6.3%), physician's (0.1%) or friends' advice (0.2%) became far less common.
Primary and Additional Reasons for Adopting and Maintaining Yoga Practice in n (%)
More than one additional reason per participant possible.
Predictors Associated Independently with Current Primary Reasons for Practicing Yoga
Predictors of reason for current practice
Participants primarily practicing Iyengar Yoga and those who were at least 40 years of age when starting yoga were more likely to report prevention as their primary reason for currently practicing yoga. Practicing yoga for treating a specific health reason was less common among those who were practicing for 5 years or longer. There were divergent findings for using yoga primarily for spiritual reasons or for relaxation, although Iyengar Yoga practitioners were less likely to give either of the two reasons as their primary reasons, Sivananda Yoga practitioners were more likely to report spirituality and less likely to report relaxation as their primary reason. Likewise, although both reasons were less often reported with increasing age, participants were more likely to report spirituality and less likely to report relaxation as their primary reason for current practice, the longer they had been practicing yoga at the time of the survey. Women were also more likely than men to practice yoga for spirituality and less likely to practice for relaxation (Table 3).
Discussion
This sample reported being initially drawn to yoga primarily for relaxation and for health promotion. These results differ somewhat from those of the national survey conducted in the United States, where exercise, flexibility, and getting into shape, along with relaxation, were the top initial motivations for beginning yoga. 9 This discrepancy may be due to methodological differences in that the earlier study presented a somewhat different list of motivations for participants to choose from. There may also be differences between German and American yoga cultures; in the United States, yoga is often considered a fitness modality along with classes such as aerobic dancing and Zumba, 21 while in Germany it is more often regarded as a relaxation technique. 22 Importantly, however, in both the present study and earlier studies of motives for yoga practice, participants reported having many additional motives for beginning practice. This finding suggests that even beginners view yoga as having the potential to improve many aspects of their lives. These perceptions of potential benefit may not only influence people's inclination to begin practicing yoga but may also influence the effects they perceive as a result of their practice. 23
Like the earlier U.S. survey, the authors also found substantial evidence for changes in primary motive with continued practice. In fact, over half of the sample reported a different current primary reason for practice than when they started. In particular, participants reported that their current motivation was primarily for health promotion (nearly 40%) or spirituality (over a quarter of the sample). Relaxation was currently less common as the primary motive (just over 15%) than as an initial motive, but nearly half the sample listed relaxation as a secondary current motive. These results suggest that even though primary motives may change with practice, yoga continues to meet many different needs for its practitioners.
Changes in primary motivation to practice yoga were associated with longer term practice and higher education levels, findings similar to those reported in the earlier U.S. survey. 9 These shifts with continued practice are consistent with the notion of yoga practice as a personal journey. 24 –26 This perspective is also reflected in these findings of reports of increases in spirituality as the primary motive for practice. 3,27 These shifts suggest that, with continued practice and knowledge, yoga practitioners increasingly experience its holistic mind/body/spirit nature. 2,9
The authors also found that different types of yoga practice are associated with somewhat different patterns of primary motives—specifically, those practicing Iyengar style were less likely than those practicing other types to be primarily motivated for relaxation or spirituality. This may reflect the appeal of Iyengar to those seeking help for a specific health problem and the focus in this type of therapy on the physical form. 28 On the contrary, Sivananda yoga practitioners were more likely to report spirituality as their primary motive, consistent with the view of this type of yoga as more deeply rooted in Indian spiritual traditions and Hindu philosophy than other forms of yoga. 17 These results also revealed that women are more motivated by a primary spiritual motive than are men, consistent with many studies demonstrating women's relative openness to religion and spirituality. 29
The limitations of this study must be noted. The survey's cross-sectional design does not permit conclusions regarding causality; relationships were only correlational. This sampling technique likely introduced biases in the sample for which the authors cannot account for, and this sample was from one country, Germany. Thus, they do not know how well this study represents yoga practitioners. They only studied yoga practitioners who maintained their practice and thus were not able to examine the motives of those who may have practiced yoga for some period of time and then discontinued it. The distinction between primary and additional motives may also be somewhat artificial, in that some of the additional motives may have been just as strong, and participants' reports of initial motives may be subject to recall bias, especially for those practicing yoga for long periods of time. Furthermore, this sample consisted of a rather large proportion (58%) of yoga teachers, but the authors were not adequately powered to conduct statistical analyses separately by teacher status; it is likely that motives for teachers may be different than those for nonstudents (particularly around spirituality).
Despite these limitations, this study adds to the small body of literature seeking to understand why people begin practicing yoga and replicates and extends previous findings that the primary reason given for beginning practice is related to physical health. 10 –12 Characterizing the reasons for adopting a yoga practice sheds light on the expectations people may have regarding the impact of yoga on their health and well-being. This study builds on previous research in documenting reasons for continuing to practice yoga over the long term.
As yoga continues to become more widely practiced, 30 the authors need to understand more about how and why people engage in this practice, and what sustains practice over time. Information on motives will be helpful for those designing yoga interventions and those working to disseminate yoga into the health care system and community to make it more accessible. Appealing to different groups seeking to meet different needs may lead more individuals to try yoga and to maintain practice over time, providing benefits to public health.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to express their gratefulness to all yoga teacher associations, yoga studios, and individuals who contributed to participant recruitment for this survey, especially the Berufsverband der Yogalehrenden in Deutschland (BDY), Iyengar-Yoga Deutschland e.V., Yoga Vidya/Berufsverband der Yoga Vidya Lehrer/innen (BYVG), 3H Organisation Deutschland e.V. (3HO Deutschland), and the organizers of the Yoga Conference Germany in Cologne, Germany. The authors further thank all yoga practitioners who participated in the survey.
Author Disclosure Statement
No competing financial interests exist.
Funding Information
HC was supported by the Erich Ruthenfußer Stiftung.