Yoga for Stress Management in Health Care Personnel

Yoga for Stress Management in Health Care Personnel and Its Relation to the Hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal(HPA)Axis

The purpose of this study is to investigate if yoga can be an effective stress management technique for health care personnel.

Stress, both job related and personal, is an increasing problem in the health care sector. Yoga is said to have a good stress-reducing effect.

The participants will provide blood, urine, and saliva samples. They will take part in two different stress tests. They will also fill in various qualitative questionnaires, including the Swedish questionnaire on health related quality of life (SWEDQUAL), Antonovsky's sense of coherence scale (KASAM), and the Job stress survey (JSS), both before the study starts and after 3 months of participation.

Inclusion Criteria:

• BMI 18-30
• healthy
• work in the health care sector

Exclusion Criteria:

• medication, including contraceptives and all medications or topical skin preparations with cortisone in any form (exception: hormone replacement therapy for hypothyroidism were included if their hormone levels were within the normal range)