An Internet-based survey of the dance fitness program OULA

The emotional dance with depression: A longitudinal investigation of OULA® for depression in women

The primary purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate OULA®, a dance fitness program with a strong emphasis on processing emotions through dance, as an intervention for depression in women diagnosed with major or persistent depressive disorders. 53 women were eligible for participation. Women attended OULA® for 12 weeks and then abstained from OULA® during week 13. For the primary outcome, depression severity was measured using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D), and secondary outcomes were measured using the Beck Anxiety Index (BAI) and the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS). After the abstinence week, women were offered 3-months of optional additional OULA®. HAM-D, BAI and SHS scores were collected at weeks 2, 4, 5-14 and at the end of the 3-month optional OULA® phase. Results from linear mixed effects repeated models show that during the 12-week intervention period and at week 26, HAM-D scores significantly decrease each week compared to baseline. Further, BAI scores significantly decrease starting at week 5 and through the end of the intervention period and at week 26. Moreover, SHS scores increased significantly for four of the weeks during the intervention period and at week 26. The results from this study suggest that OULA® may be a useful intervention for decreasing depression and anxiety severity in women with depression but may not be helpful for improving subjective happiness.

Leisure Motivation and Satisfaction: A Text Mining of Yoga Centres, Yoga Consumers, and Their Interactions

Understanding the motivation and satisfaction of yoga consumers is of critical importance for both leisure service providers and leisure researchers to enhance the sustainability of personal lives in terms of physical wellness and mental happiness. For this purpose, this study investigated 25,120 pairs of online ratings and reviews from 100 yoga centres in Shanghai, China using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA)-based text mining, and successfully established the relationship between rating and review. Findings suggest that Chinese yogis are motivated by improving physical condition, improving psychological condition, gracing appearance, establishing social connection, and creating social isolation. In addition to teaching mainstream yoga, yoga centres also provide additional courses. From a consumer perspective, yogis are relatively satisfied with teachers, courses, and the environment, but complain about the supporting staff, membership price, and reservation service. Managerially, yoga centres are encouraged to continue attending to the motivations of yogis, specialising their guidance, and fostering strengths and circumventing weaknesses in their service. This study also contributes by verifying, elaborating on, and tentatively extending the framework of the Physical Activity and Leisure Motivation Scale (PALMS).