Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 May-Aug;14(2):109-118.
doi: 10.4103/ijoy.IJOY_82_20. Epub 2021 May 10.

Global Change in Interest toward Yoga for Mental Health Ailments during Coronavirus Disease-19 Pandemic: A Google Trend Analysis

Har Ashish Jindal  1 , Parineeta Jindal  2 , Limalemla Jamir  3 , Dharamjeet Singh Faujdar  4 , Himani Datta  5
Affiliations

Global Change in Interest toward Yoga for Mental Health Ailments during Coronavirus Disease-19 Pandemic: A Google Trend Analysis

Har Ashish Jindal et al. Int J Yoga. 2021 May-Aug.

Abstract

Background: With coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemic, society is gripped with uncertainty and fear, inclining them toward Yoga to prevent mental health issues. Google Trends (GT) depicts the public interest of the community which may vary due to evolving policy dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Aim: The aim was to study global public interest in Yoga for mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Material and methods: Global time trends were obtained for Yoga, Anxiety, and Depression from November 1, 2019 to May 31, 2020 using GT. The time series analysis was done in three different time periods - pre-COVID-19 phase, transition period, and COVID-19 pandemic phase. Cross-correlation, Spearman rho, Friedman ANOVA test, and forecasting were used for analysis.

Results: GT found a global change in the search queries for Yoga, anxiety, and depression during the three time periods. High burden COVID-19 countries - Italy, Spain, Russia, and Brazil had an increasing search trend for Yoga. During the COVID-19 phase, there was a significant positive correlation between the search trends of Yoga with depression (r = 0.232; P < 0.05) and anxiety (r = 0.351; P < 0.05), but higher anxiety and depression searches lead to lower Yoga searches at lag +6. Forecast projected a continuous increase in Yoga searches and anxiety queries.

Conclusion: Google Trends captured a significant rise in interest of Yoga among the global community but diminished with time. Hence, the need for interventions to promote Yoga to be part of routine life and for making sure that people adhere to the Yoga practices on a continuous basis.

Keywords: Anxiety; Google Trends; Yoga; coronavirus disease-19; depression.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

There are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Time trend of Yoga, Depression, and Anxiety from time period November 1, 2019 to May 31, 2020
Figure 2
Figure 2
Global change in the search query of Yoga, Anxiety, and Depression during pre-COVID-19 phase (November 01, 2020–January 30, 2020) and COVID-19 pandemic phase (March 12, 2020–May 31, 2020). COVID-19: Coronavirus disease-19
Figure 3
Figure 3
Correlation between Yoga with (a) Anxiety (b) Depression across the world during the time period: I = Pre-COVID-19 phase; II = Transition Phase; III = COVID-19 pandemic phase. COVID-19: Coronavirus disease-19
Figure 4
Figure 4
Forecast of Yoga, Anxiety, and Depression for June 2020 to December 2020
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. WHO. WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard. 2020. [[Last accessed on 2020 Jun 11]]. Available from: https://covid19.who.int/
    1. School of Public Health, Harvard T. H. Chan. Health and Wellbeing during COVID-19. India Research Centre. 2020. [[Last accessed on 2020 Jun 18]]. Available from: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/india-center/health-and-wellbeing-during-co...
    1. Li W, Yang Y, Liu ZH, Zhao YJ, Zhang Q, Zhang L, et al. Progression of Mental Health Services during the COVID-19 Outbreak in China. Int J Biol Sci. 2020;16:1732–8. - PMC - PubMed
    1. WHO. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2017. [[Last accessed on 2020 Jun 30]]. Depression and Other Common Mental Disorders: Global Health Estimates. Available from: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/254610/WHO-MSD-MER-2017... .
    1. Govindaraj R, Karmani S, Varambally S, Gangadhar BN. Yoga and physical exercise-a review and comparison. Int Rev Psychiatry. 2016;28:242–53. - PubMed