Following a 10-week pilot study in association with a research team at York St John University, Iyengar Yoga (UK) has published a report showing that Iyengar yoga can help reduce some of the symptoms of Long Covid, including fatigue, anxiety, breathing problems and sleep problems.

Recent estimates from the Office of National Statistics suggest that about around 2 million people, or 3% of the British population, are suffering from fatigue, ‘brain fog’ and other chronic complaints following Covid infection. The probability of Long Covid persists even with less severe infections, including the now prevalent Omicron variants, so how to manage and treat the condition continues to be a pressing public health issue.

Iyengar Yoga (UK) designed and delivered a Long Covid pilot project for ten weeks between October and December 2021. 55 adults (ranging from 22-69 years of age) suffering from Long Covid participated in the programme, during which each student had a weekly online private yoga session with two qualified Iyengar yoga teachers, supervised by a senior therapy teacher.

The programme’s basic recommended Asana sequence was devised by Lois Steinberg, shown to teachers in a training session, and made available on our website. The pilot study was developed and organised by a working group of IY(UK) teachers, and administered by IY(UK) staff. 115 IY(UK) teachers (and a pool of 19 cover teachers) regularly volunteered their time in return for professional development training provided as part of the programme.  

How the study was conducted

Participants were asked to complete pre and post-session symptom evaluations, and post-session reflections through surveys. All this data was analysed and, in a second part to the research, in-depth interviews were conducted by Vishal Shah, an independent student-researcher at York St John University. Eleven students and three teachers were randomly selected for interview, the content of which was systematically analysed by Mr. Shah under the supervision of Dr Chris Boyes, who teaches evidence-based practice and research methods in Health and Social Care at York St John University, and Dr Laura Potts.

The interviews also revealed that the Iyengar yoga programme had positive benefits on their ability to sleep, probably contributing to the mental and physical health benefits reported at the end of the intervention: “I had really bad sleep issues…. it certainly helped me straight away to get it better to a point where it [sleeping] was actually manageable.”

All the students who were interviewed after the intervention would absolutely recommend the programme to others and hoped that others could continue to benefit from the programme.

The randomly-selected teachers who were interviewed also reported that the experience in therapy teaching was very much appreciated. Although many found the online format and the form filling challenging, they felt supported in learning the intricacies of observation and in having valuable input from a senior therapy teacher in all sessions. They found that working as a team and focusing on just one student at a time gave them new insight into Iyengar yoga and how to impart it to students. This suggests that the team-teaching online model might have great potential for supervised therapy training in future.

The research team will be submitting the results to a journal for peer-review and publication. We are very grateful for all those who volunteered considerable time and expertise in making this project a success.

If you are struggling with Long Covid symptoms check this page for a list of Long Covid classes, or search the Long Covid class category on our homepage. You’ll also find our downloadable Covid Recovery Programme below.

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