Yoga may enhance traditional recovery programs, researchers find

Yoga may help support individuals recovering from substance use disorders, according to researchers at Penn State Brandywine. The team includes Kendall Taylor, a fourth-year psychology student at Penn State Brandywine, who recently presented the work at the Eastern Psychological Association’s annual conference in Boston and at the campus’s Student Engagement Expo.

Led by Associate Professor of Psychology Daniela Martin and Associate Teaching Professor of Kinesiology Andrea Randolph and supported by a Commonwealth Campus Undergraduate Community-Engaged Research Award (UCERA), the researchers partnered with local organizations to evaluate yoga as a complementary approach to enhance traditional recovery programs.

“I’m coming up on 10 and a half years sober, so this topic really holds a special place in my heart,” Taylor said. “After being told about the opportunity in my ‘PSYCH 243: Introduction to Well-Being and Positive Psychology’ course, I told Drs. Martin and Randolph that I would be honored to participate in research with them.”

The idea for the study emerged through collaboration between Brandywine faculty and alumna Cheryl Spera, who operates Higher Ground Yoga, a trauma-sensitive yoga studio in Aston. Spera, who studied human development and family studies, works closely with individuals in recovery and partners with local agencies.

“I met Cheryl in the community at her yoga studio, and I learned that she works in partnership with a wide range of recovery agencies,” Martin said. “When we met, we talked about the possibility of doing research to evaluate the effectiveness of yoga as an alternative enhancement modality to treat addiction and substance use.”

Through the UCERA grant, Taylor, Martin and Randolph connected with R&D Recovery, a local recovery organization, to design, deliver and evaluate a six-week yoga program for participants, in addition to their regular treatment. The program enrolled seven participants and taught them to use a combination of deep breathing, physical postures and meditation—techniques the researchers said have been shown to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, lowering cortisol and calming the mind.

The researchers surveyed the participants and collected physiological data, such as heart rate and blood pressure, throughout the six-week program and compared the results to those of a control recovery treatment group not participating in the yoga program. They also conducted pre- and post-program interviews before and after the six-week program.

Participants reported improvements in several psychological measures, including increased mindfulness, reduced stress and greater emotional awareness, as well as feeling better both physically and mentally than before the program.

“We found that people were a lot more cognizant of their breathing,” Taylor said. “We also found that stress management, and the awareness of stressful situations, had changed. Participants were still experiencing stress in their lives, but the way they handled it or the way they viewed it changed positively.”

Randolph explained that they found significant differences across psychological measurements.

“The results show that mindfulness increased over all facets of the questions we gave in the surveys—this includes absence of self-critique, ability to observe inner events, non-reactivity and the ability to describe emotion,” Randolph said. “Participants also reported improvement in post-traumatic growth.”

The benefits extended beyond individual results, the researchers said, with participants reporting an increased sense of connection with one another.

“The participants also noted a sense of connectedness after being in the program,” Taylor said. “These participants knew each other through the recovery treatment program, but some of them had never talked to each other. Being able to be in the same room and have a common goal allowed them to bond and focus on bettering themselves.”

The project spanned approximately two years, beginning in 2024, with one round of the six-week yoga program and one round of the control group. The remainder of the two years consisted of prepping the program, analyzing the results and compiling it into a final project.

Reflecting on her experience, Taylor encouraged other students to pursue research opportunities during their time at Brandywine.

“Doing this research was the most amazing experience I’ve had in my collegiate career. It brought me so much joy to participate in something like this because I’d never done research before, and to be a part of a project that had meaning and purpose was so meaningful to me,” Taylor said. “My advice is if you get the opportunity to do research, take it and push yourself to go outside your comfort zone.”