The benefits of yoga for musicians
Professional musicians experience high levels of stress, performance anxiety, and debilitating performance-related musculoskeletal disorders.
Researchers from Harvard Medical School, in Boston evaluated the benefits of yoga and meditation for musicians.
First, the details.
- 45 young adult professional musicians volunteered to participate in a 2-month program of yoga and meditation.
- They were randomly assigned to a treatment group.
- Yoga lifestyle intervention
- Yoga and meditation practice
- A no-practice control group
- Both yoga groups attended 3 Kripalu Yoga or meditation classes each week.
- Kripalu emphasizes proper breathing, alignment, and coordination of breath and movement
- The yoga lifestyle group also participated in weekly group practice and discussion sessions.
- All participants completed questionnaires that evaluated music performance anxiety, mood, performance-related musculoskeletal disorders, perceived stress, and sleep quality.
- Many participants later completed a 1-year follow-up assessment using the questionnaires.
And, the results.
- Both yoga groups showed a trend towards less music performance anxiety.
- There was significantly less general anxiety/tension, depression, and anger compared to the controls.
- There were no changes in performance-related musculoskeletal disorders, stress, or sleep.
The bottom line?
The authors concluded that similar results in the 2 yoga groups, despite differences in their treatments, suggest that the yoga and meditation techniques may have been responsible for the improvements.
The results support a smaller study by the same researchers several years ago.
8/9/09 18:13 JR