Mindfulness and yoga self-care workshop for Northern Ugandan teachers: A pilot study

Abstract

Teacher stress is evident in many developed countries; however, teacher stress is also evident in many low-income sub-Saharan countries such as Uganda where teachers face additional challenges compared to their North American/European counterpart. The goal of this study was to pilot test a mindfulness and yoga self-care workshop designed for teachers working in post-conflict Northern Uganda to help them cope with stress. Twenty teachers participated in the workshop and were compared to a group of matched wait-list teachers on psychological well-being measures. Results show that self-care teachers showed greater reductions in levels of anger, fear, sadness and perceived hostility, and greater increases in levels of emotional support and friendship compared to wait-list teachers. Moreover, longitudinal exploratory data analyses suggest that many of these effects gradually emerge over the course of the three-month school term. These finds are discussed in the context of how school psychologists can help teachers in developing countries through from yoga-based, mindfulness-type programs, and the need for more scaled-up research.