Hot yoga is a style of yoga performed in a heated room, usually around 40°C (104°F), with a humidity of around 40%. It consists of a series of 26 postures and breathing exercises designed to strengthen the whole body and provide both physical and mental benefits.
The heat allows for deeper stretching and the elimination of toxins through sweat. Advocates claim hot yoga improves flexibility, strength, circulation, weight loss, and mood. The most popular style of hot yoga is Bikram yoga, which Bikram Choudhury created in the 1970s.
Key Points
Rationale
Yoga has become increasingly popular for health and well-being, with over 55 million practitioners in the US (Zuckerman, 2020). Hot yoga in heated rooms (40°C) is a popular form claiming physical and mental benefits.
However, research has mostly focused on clinical groups, used small samples, and lacked comprehensive well-being measures (Brinsley et al., 2020).
This rigorously designed randomized controlled trial (RCT) with 290 healthy adults addresses these limitations to evaluate whether hot yoga improves multifaceted well-being.
Method
290 healthy yoga-naïve adults were randomly allocated to a hot yoga group (n= 137, 78% female, mean age 29.5 years) or waitlist control group (n= 153, 80% female, mean age 29.3 years).
The yoga group attended 24 hot yoga classes over six weeks. All participants completed surveys assessing well-being at baseline and six weeks, and theexperience sampling method(ESM) reported emotions four times daily.
Hot Yoga
The hot yoga group was offered 24 Bikram hot yoga classes held over the 6-week study period. Bikram is a standardized sequence of 26 poses and 2 breathing exercises conducted in a room heated to 40°C with 40% humidity (Choudhury, 2007).
There was no minimum class attendance mandated, but participants could attend up to 4 classes per week.
ESM
Participants were asked about their emotional experiences, specifically rating the extent to which they felt various positive emotions (glad, happy, grateful, interested, proud) and negative emotions (angry, ashamed, disgusted, repentant).
Self-Reports
The surveys assessing well-being indicators were given at baseline and the 6-week timepoint.
Data Analysis
Survey data was analyzed using linear regression models. ESM data was analyzed using multilevel modeling given the nested data structure.
Multilevel mediation models also tested whether increased positive emotions mediated well-being improvements.
Results
Insight
The hot yoga group specifically showed bigger increases in life satisfaction, health, mindfulness, calmness, and purpose in life. The increases were small to medium-sized. However, there was no extra improvement in positive social relationships.
When tracking people’s emotions throughout the study, the hot yoga group felt more positive emotions over time, especially right after doing a hot yoga class. People who were less happy at the start of the study increased their positive emotions the most from the hot yoga.
The increases in positive emotion accounted for some of the well-being improvements after 6 weeks of hot yoga.
Strengths
Limitations
Implications
The accessible and cost-effective nature of hot yoga makes it a promising public health approach for enhancing wellbeing.
Less emotionally responsive individuals may require more intense or longer interventions. Hot yoga shows promise as an accessible and effective self-care approach to improve multifaceted well-being.
Advocates of hot yoga believe it has several advantages over traditional yoga done at normal room temperature:
References
Primary reference
Hui, B. P. H., Parma, L., Kogan, A., & Vuillier, L. (2022). Hot yoga leads to greater well-being: A six-week experience-sampling RCT in healthy adults.Psychosocial Intervention, 31(2), 67–82.https://doi.org/10.5093/pi2022a4
Other references
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Brinsley, J., Schuch, F., Lederman, O., Girard, D., Smout, M., Immink, M. A., Stubbs, B., Firth, J., Davison, K., & Rosenbaum, S. (2020). Effects of yoga on depressive symptoms in people with mental disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis.British Journal of Sports Medicine, 55(17), 992–1000.
Choudhury, B. (2007).Bikram yoga: The guru behind hot yoga shows the way to radiant health and personal fulfillment. HarperCollins.
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Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Tov, W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi, D., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2010). New well-being measures: Short scales to assess flourishing and positive and negative feelings.Social Indicators Research, 97(2), 143-156.
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Lee, Y. C., Lin, Y. C., Huang, C. L., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2013). The construct and measurement of peace of mind.Journal of Happiness Studies, 14(2), 571-590.
Tennant, R., Hiller, L., Fishwick, R., Platt, S., Joseph, S., Weich, S., Parkinson, J., Secker, J., Stewart-Brown, S., Ryan, R., Deci, E., Goldberg, D., Williams, P., Compton, W., Smith, M., Cornish, K., Qualls, D., Keyes, C., Shmotkin, D., … Rutter, C. (2007). The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): Development and UK validation.Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 5(1), e63.
Waterman, A. S., Schwartz, S. J., Zamboanga, B. L., Ravert, R. D., Williams, M. K., Bede Agocha, V., … & Brent Donnellan, M. (2010). The Questionnaire for Eudaimonic Well-Being: Psychometric properties, demographic comparisons, and evidence of validity.The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(1), 41-61.
Zuckerman, A. (2020, August 2). Significant yoga statistics: 2019/2020 benefits, facts & trends. CompareCamp. https://comparecamp.com/yoga-statistics/#TOC2
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Hand drawn poster of hatha yoga poses and their names, Iyengar yoga asanas difficulty levels 6-15
Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education
Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.
Saul McLeod, PhD
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester
Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.
