Acute Physiological and Emotional Responses to a Brief 24-Minute Yoga Session: Randomized Exploratory Pilot Study With Waitlist Comparison
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Wellness tourism increasingly incorporates short yoga sessions for stress management, yet evidence on their immediate physiological and emotional responses remains limited. Objective: This exploratory pilot study aimed to generate preliminary data on acute physiological and emotional responses to a single 24-minute yoga session (breathing, postures, and meditation) compared with quiet sitting in novice practitioners. Methods: In this single-center, randomized waitlist-controlled exploratory pilot study (1:1 allocation), 19 university-affiliated adults with self-reported daily stress and no prior guided yoga experience were allocated to an immediate 24-minute yoga session (n=10) or quiet sitting (n=9). The primary outcome was change in salivary cortisol from baseline to postintervention. Secondary outcomes included salivary alpha-amylase, heart rate (Apple Watch [Apple Inc], subset n=12), and real-time emotional indices (stress, calmness, and concentration) measured by a commercial single-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) device (Kansei Analyzer [Dentsu ScienceJAM], subset n=8). Data were analyzed using change scores relative to the breathing phase, with between-group comparison performed by independent t tests or multivariable linear regression adjusted for age, sex, and baseline values as appropriate. Results: No significant between-group differences were observed for salivary cortisol or alpha-amylase. In the yoga group, heart rate increased during postures and remained mildly elevated during meditation relative to the breathing phase, consistent with mild physical exertion. Exploratory individual EEG analyses suggested reduced stress and increased concentration during breathing and meditation phases in some participants. Conclusions: In this small exploratory pilot study, a single 24-minute yoga session did not significantly alter salivary stress biomarkers at the group level. However, it induced measurable cardiovascular activation and heterogeneous EEG-derived emotional responses. These hypothesis-generating findings demonstrate marked interindividual variability, suggesting the need for larger validation studies with improved control conditions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".