Divergent Understandings of Stress and Effects of Yoga and Breath Practice on Body and Emotion: A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study

Popular practice of yoga has spread worldwide, alongside fitness, health, and contemplative pursuits. Concurrently, mental distress and disorders are major contributors to the burden of non-communicable diseases. Practices of yoga-meditation are widely touted and often pursued as antidotes for stress. A qualitative mixed methods study incorporating freelisting and cultural consensus analysis was designed to determine the extent to which members of different cultural groups have shared or divergent understandings related to stress and yoga-meditation. A diverse international group in Thailand (Group 1, n=67), and a predominantly Indian national group in India (Group 2, n=40), were recruited. An identical protocol was implemented in both locations involving in-person, written responses to questions covering both domains. Salience was derived using Smith’s S in a two-stage analysis (uncoded, then re-coded), with terms reaching S > 0.10 in either group retained for comparison. A 10% difference criterion in raw salience yielded a profile of cross-group differences and similarities, complemented by cultural consensus analysis. We found consensus for stress and yoga-meditation across groups, yet different underlying schemas emerged from both the salience and consensus analyses. Group 1 endorsed a personal transformation schema, while Group 2 endorsed a body-and-emotion orientation schema. These findings reveal how cultural background shapes understanding of widely-shared health concepts and contemplative practices, with important implications for cross-cultural health research and culturally responsive interventions.