Adding Yoga to Physical Activity Guidelines Reduces Mortality Risk Compared With Meeting Guidelines Alone

This study examined associations of yoga participation and prospective all-cause mortality risk in the United States' nationally representative National Health Interview Survey.

Data were from the National Health Interview Survey samples from 2007, 2012, and 2017. A subset of participants were asked about their weekly physical activity (PA; min/wk) and if they practiced yoga in the past year (yes/no). Participants were ≥18 years, had eligible mortality follow-up, and answered PA and yoga questions (N = 26,055). Participants were followed up using the National Death Index (a resource that provides mortality data from death certificates) through 2019 to determine participant mortality status (n = 815 deaths). Participant activity level was categorized as meeting (active) or not meeting (inactive) combined aerobic and strength training PA guidelines (≥150 min/wk of moderate-to-vigorous PA and ≥2 d/wk of strength training) based on their reported activity. Participants were categorized into 4 groups by their yoga participation and meeting combined PA guidelines (inactive/no yoga, inactive/yoga, active/no yoga, and active/yoga). Survey weighted Cox proportional hazard models computed hazard ratios mortality during follow-up between the 4 groups with active/no yoga as the reference.

In the fully adjusted models, the active/yoga group had 51% lower risk of mortality compared with active/no yoga (hazard ratio: 0.49; 95% CI, 0.26-0.91), whereas the inactive/no yoga group had 77% higher risk compared with active/no yoga (hazard ratio: 1.77; 95% CI, 1.12-2.80).

Yoga participation and meeting the combined PA guidelines may provide additional and independent protective mortality benefits compared with meeting PA guidelines without yoga.