Effectiveness of Yoga exercise on psychological, emotional and social well-being of female students

The purpose of present study was to investigate effectiveness of Yoga on emotional, psychological, emotional and social well-being of female students of Islamic Azad University. To this aim firstly instruments was administered on 300 female student and then 80 student who had acquired low scores in emotional and psychological well-being were selected and replaced randomly in two groups of Yoga and control (each group included 40 students). The first group had received training in 10 sessions Yoga but control did not. Before and after training participants answered these questionnaires: Depression, Anxiety and Stress (DAS-42), Short form of Keyes Social well-being scale, and General health Questionnaire (GHQ-28). Results showed Yoga is significantly effective in reduction of emotional well-being components (p>0/001), specially anxiety and stress. Also findings showed Yoga have significant effect on promotion of two dimension of social well-being (social acceptance and integration) (p>0/001).finally the Yoga exerices have significant effect on all dimensions of psychological well-being (p>0/001). Generally findings showed Yoga is most useful for emotional and psychological well-being and improved emotional and psychological well being of female students, but have somehow effect on social well-being. Key words: Yoga, psychological well-being, Emotional well-being, social well-being