Feasibility of a Yoga Intervention in Sedentary African-American Women

PROJECT SUMMARY Decreasing sedentary behavior has numerous health benefits. Yoga is an emerging activity that has the potential to decrease sedentary behavior in adults, and reduce risk factors such as high blood pressure and stress. Although yoga has the reputation of attracting college-educated, non-Hispanic, white populations and is sometimes viewed as exclusionary to those outside that community, it has become increasingly popular among African-Americans with the growth of Afrocentric (i.e., focusing on Black or African culture) yoga, the establishment of Black yoga organizations, and the expansion of social media presence of African-American yoga practitioners. The literature suggests that yoga could be an effective strategy to address adverse health outcomes by decreasing sedentary behavior in African-Americans, however this has not been examined in African-American women. The primary objective of this application is to test the feasibility, acceptability, safety and targeted outcomes of a 3-month hatha and restorative yoga intervention to decrease sedentary behavior (primary outcome), stress and blood pressure in 60 sedentary (