Effect of Iyengar Yoga on Mental Health of Incarcerated Women: A Feasibility Study

burden of mental illness. Although psychotropic medica-tions are available to women in prison, adjunctive treatment modalities, such as Iyengar yoga, may increase psycho-logical well-being. b Objectives: The purposes of this study were (a) to address the feasibility of providing a gender-responsive exercise in-tervention within a correctional institution and (b) to ob-serve the effect of a group-format Iyengar yoga program that met two sessions a week for 12 weeks on levels of de-pression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and perceived stress among incarcerated women. b Methods: A repeated measures design, in which each par-ticipant served as her own control, was used. Participants completed three self-administered instruments: the Beck Depression Inventory, the Beck Anxiety Inventory, and th