Yoga is widely used for whole-person wellness, and stress-related outcomes have been measured in national surveys and controlled trials. In the 2022 U.S. National Health Interview Survey, 16.9% of adults reported practicing yoga during the previous 12 months. Studies of distressed adults, students, nursing staff, people living with HIV in reentry, and people with anxiety have reported changes in perceived stress or related measures, but the results remain specific to each intervention and population.
Contents
- U.S. yoga participation and wellness goals
- Yoga, meditation, and whole-person wellness
- Adult trials measuring perceived stress
- Style, dose, attendance, and follow-up
- Cortisol, blood pressure, and stress reactivity
- Students, workers, and clinical populations
- Yoga compared with mindfulness and CBT
U.S. yoga participation and wellness goals
The CDC National Center for Health Statistics report, “Yoga Among Adults Age 18 and Older: United States, 2022”, measured yoga participation in the previous 12 months. The survey found that 16.9% of U.S. adults aged 18 and older practiced yoga.
Participation differed by sex, age, race and Hispanic origin, and family income. The age-adjusted rate was 23.3% for women and 10.3% for men. By age, participation was 21.3% among adults 18–44, 14.1% among adults 45–64, and 8.0% among adults 65 and older.
The same 2022 survey reported these participation rates among U.S. adults:
| Group | Yoga participation |
|---|---|
| Asian, non-Hispanic adults | 22.5% |
| White, non-Hispanic adults | 19.3% |
| Black, non-Hispanic adults | 12.6% |
| Hispanic adults | 10.5% |
| Below 200% of the federal poverty level | 10.4% |
| 200% to under 400% of the federal poverty level | 14.0% |
| 400% or more of the federal poverty level | 23.0% |
These are participation estimates for U.S. adults, not rates of diagnosed stress or enrollment in a stress-treatment program. They show that yoga is a substantial wellness practice while also indicating that participation varies across demographic and economic groups.
Yoga, meditation, and whole-person wellness
Stress reduction is often part of a broader wellness purpose. In 2022, 80.0% of U.S. yoga practitioners told the CDC survey that they used yoga to restore overall health. The report describes this purpose as including mental and emotional well-being, so the figure should not be read as a measure of people with a stress diagnosis.
The percentage using yoga to restore overall health was 78.4% among practitioners aged 18–44, 83.3% among those aged 45–64, and 79.1% among those aged 65 and older. Among practitioners, the share was 81.7% for White adults, 75.6% for Asian adults, and 75.1% for Hispanic adults.
Yoga and meditation also frequently appeared together. The 2022 survey found that 57.4% of U.S. adults who practiced yoga also reported doing meditation as part of yoga. The share was 59.3% among women practitioners and 52.9% among men. By age, meditation was part of yoga for 62.0% of practitioners aged 18–44, 53.9% of those aged 45–64, and 49.1% of those aged 65 and older.
The reported percentages also varied by race and income. Meditation as part of yoga was reported by 70.7% of Black practitioners, 66.8% of Hispanic practitioners, 56.7% of Asian practitioners, 54.0% of White practitioners, and 70.8% of practitioners identifying as other or multiple races. The corresponding figures by federal poverty level were 65.3% below 200%, 56.7% at 200% to under 400%, and 55.7% at 400% or more.
For historical context, the 2012 National Health Interview Survey wellness analysis from NCCIH reported that 86% of yoga practitioners said yoga helped reduce stress, while 87% said it improved their overall health. These are self-reported findings from 2012 and should not be treated as independently verified current estimates.
Adult trials measuring perceived stress
Controlled trials commonly use the Perceived Stress Scale or the Cohen Perceived Stress Scale. These instruments measure perceived stress rather than establishing that yoga treats every form of clinical stress.
In a three-month randomized trial of distressed women, the Iyengar yoga study tested once-weekly and twice-weekly classes against a waiting-list control. Mean CPSS scores in the once-weekly group fell from 34.0 at baseline to 24.9 after three months. In the twice-weekly group, mean scores fell from 35.8 to 28.1.
Compared with the waiting-list control, the post-intervention treatment effect was −6.7 CPSS points for once-weekly Iyengar yoga, with a 95% confidence interval of −10.9 to −2.5 and P=.002. The twice-weekly effect was −4.7 points, with a 95% confidence interval of −9.2 to −0.3 and P=.036. Pooling both yoga doses produced a difference of −5.7 points, with a 95% confidence interval of −9.5 to −2.0 and P=.003.
A Swedish primary-care randomized trial of medical yoga for stress-related symptoms reported significantly greater improvement in general stress than standard care after 12 weeks, with P<.0001. It also reported greater improvement in anxiety, with P<.019. Those results apply to that medical-yoga program and primary-care sample.
Style, dose, attendance, and follow-up
Intervention details matter when comparing results. The Iyengar trial offered either 12 weekly 90-minute classes or 24 twice-weekly 90-minute classes over three months. Average attendance was 71% of offered sessions in the once-weekly group and 63% in the twice-weekly group. More than 80% of offered classes were attended by half of the women in each group.
The RELAX study followed adults suffering from distress through 12 weekly 90-minute sessions and a 12-week follow-up period during which daily home practice was recommended. In the integrative-yoga group, mean PSS fell from 33.91 to 26.03 by follow-up, a change of −7.89 points with d=1.41. In the Iyengar group, mean PSS fell from 33.39 to 23.88, a change of −9.52 points with d=1.37.
Immediately after the 12-week program, the integrative-yoga group reduced PSS by 6.69 points, with d=1.08. The Iyengar group reduced PSS by 6.00 points, with d=0.81. Mean PSS at that point was 27.23 in the integrative-yoga arm and 27.39 in the Iyengar arm. The study therefore provides both immediate post-program results and later follow-up results, rather than one undifferentiated estimate.
Cortisol, blood pressure, and stress reactivity
Perceived stress is only one outcome. A 2025 randomized Hatha-yoga trial tested 60-minute sessions at least three times weekly for eight weeks. It found a significant reduction in subjective momentary stress, but it did not find an impact on diurnal profiles of salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase.
A 2017 randomized crossover study examined one Hatha-yoga session before an acute psychological stress task. The yoga condition accelerated systolic blood-pressure recovery, with P=.047, and also accelerated diastolic blood-pressure recovery, with P=.018. Salivary cortisol reactivity to the task was lower in the yoga condition than in the control condition, with P=.01.
These findings distinguish short-term stress reactivity from longer-term hormone patterns. A single-session result does not establish the same outcome for a multiweek program, and a subjective stress result does not automatically imply a change in cortisol.
Students, workers, and clinical populations
Results vary across settings and participants. In a 12-week randomized university-student trial, mean perceived-stress scores fell from 25.82 to 22.77 in the yoga group. The control group changed from 24.83 to 25.09. The yoga-versus-control group-by-time effect was d=0.73, with P=.001, while the within-yoga improvement was d=0.47, with P=.001.
In a randomized trial involving people living with HIV in reentry, the three-month assessment reported unadjusted PSS scores of 15.24 in the yoga group and 20.70 with treatment as usual. The population and setting are specific, so the figures should not be generalized to all adults.
A structured yoga trial among Delhi hospital nursing staff began with similar baseline perceived-stress scores: 19.9 in the intervention group and 19.8 in the wait-list group. Baseline serum cortisol averaged 9.8 mcg/dL in the yoga group and 9.4 mcg/dL in the wait-list group, according to the Phase-II nursing-staff trial. These are baseline values, not post-intervention changes.
Yoga compared with mindfulness and CBT
Yoga outcomes are easier to interpret when the comparator is visible. In RELAX, the integrative-yoga group reduced PSS by 7.89 points by follow-up, compared with a 10.82-point reduction in the mindfulness arm. However, between-group PSS differences were not statistically significant after 12 weeks: F=2.621, P=.078, eta-squared=.050. At follow-up, the comparison also remained nonsignificant: F=1.439, P=.242, eta-squared=.028.
The RELAX mindfulness arm reduced mean PSS from 34.44 to 24.71 after 12 weeks, a 9.74-point decrease with d=1.25. By follow-up, mean PSS was 23.62, a 10.82-point decrease with d=1.23. These results describe the study’s mindfulness training and cannot be used to rank every yoga or mindfulness program.
In an NCCIH-funded generalized-anxiety trial published in 2021, 54.2% of Kundalini-yoga participants responded after 12 weeks, compared with 33.0% receiving stress education. The odds ratio was 2.46, with a 95% confidence interval of 1.12–5.42 and P=.03. CBT had a 70.8% response rate, compared with 54.2% for Kundalini yoga and 33.0% for stress education.
In a late-life worry preference trial, clinically meaningful GAD-7 improvement occurred in 65.2% of yoga participants and 74.1% of CBT participants, according to the randomized comparison of CBT and yoga. Together, these comparisons suggest that yoga can produce measurable improvements in some study populations, while the size and interpretation of the result depend on the yoga style, outcome, comparator, follow-up period, and participants.