ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Mindfulness
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1582275
This article is part of the Research TopicDeepening Consciousness: What Phenomenology, Yogic, and Buddhist Meditation Can Contribute From a Psychological PerspectiveView all 3 articles
CONCEPTUALISATIONS OF YOGA From Practice to Lifestyle: Conceptualisations of Yoga in Regular Ashtanga Yoga Practitioners Using Reflexive Thematic Analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Centre for Wellbeing Science, Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
- 2Melbourne Medical School, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
- 3Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
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Yoga is usually defined and researched as a mind-body practice used for stress reduction, fitness and general health and wellbeing. While there are widely accepted definitions found in traditional texts and contemporary literature, as a millennial tradition yoga has evolved throughout time, places and people. Less is known about how regular yoga practitioners perceive, experience, and define yoga today. This study focused on a group of regular Ashtanga yoga practitioners (n=200) to explore their conceptualisations of yoga in general, yoga philosophy, and their yoga practice using Reflexive Thematic Analysis. Yoga was defined as a practice for health and wellbeing, a method for personal inquiry and growth, a way of living, and a spiritual quest. Yoga philosophy was defined as the collection of ancient teachings for understanding human functioning and consciousness, providing a foundation for yoga practice and living life. Yoga practice was defined as the formal daily yoga ritual, adaptable, ever-changing, permeable and permeating into daily life. Three common threads revealed the entanglement of different elements and the significance of yoga as (1) an embodied integrated practice, (2) an embodied path for self-knowledge, and (3) a path for spiritual development. This entanglement and shared meanings underscore the relevance of considering participants' perspectives of yoga in research and applied settings to challenge assumptions and the prevailing image of yoga as mainly a physical and stress-reduction activity.
Keywords: Yoga, Ashtanga yoga, regular yoga practitioners, Reflexive thematic analysis, yoga philosophy
Received: 24 Feb 2025; Accepted: 08 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ramirez-Duran, Kern and Stokes. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Daniela Ramirez-Duran, Centre for Wellbeing Science, Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
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