Yoga and guided meditation in emergency medicine: Impact on stress, anxiety, and well-being

Background We aimed to evaluate the effects of yoga and guided meditation on stress, anxiety, and well-being in emergency medicine residents. Methods We randomly assigned 81 participants to yoga, guided meditation, or control using a single-level block randomization design. The yoga group attended Hatha yoga classes twice a week, the meditation group learned the technique with audio recordings for independent practice, while the control group received no training. Anxiety (Beck Anxiety Inventory), perceived stress (Perceived Stress Scale), and general well-being (Adult APGAR Adult access, priorities, growth, assistance, respon-sibility) were assessed at baseline, week 3, and week 6. Results Significant differences between groups were observed in anxiety scores at the end of 6 weeks (H:15.35, p<0.001). The control group had the highest mean (SD) anxiety score 20.63 (7.70). The yoga and meditation groups showed a significant difference in change in anxiety scores at week 6 (p=0.031). Both intervention groups showed a significant reduction in perceived stress levels compared to the control group (U:22.0, p<0.001; U:147.0, p<0.001) independently. For the APGAR score, the yoga group showed a significant increase from baseline compared to the control group (U:76.0, p<0.001). Conclusion Our study suggests that both regular yoga and guided meditation interventions are effective in reducing anxiety and stress levels while improving the well-being of emergency medicine residents. Signifi-cantly, the yoga group showed even greater improvement, underscoring the efficacy of this approach.