Community Engagement and Wellbeing

#### **Chapter 7**

## Young Canadians' Desire to Change the World and the Adults Who Support Them

*Heather L. Lawford, Heather L. Ramey, Yana Berardini, Christa Romaldi and Nishad Khanna*

#### **Abstract**

Generativity involves care and concern for future generations as a legacy of the self. It is a central developmental task in midlife for both individual well-being, and for a functioning society. As such, opportunities to foster generativity in youth have lasting benefits. There is growing evidence examining correlates of generativity with youth. To date, however, these studies rely mostly on university samples, and are somewhat homogeneous with respect to demographic representation. At the same time, youth engagement supported by adults has also been linked to youth identity development (generally considered a precursor to generativity) and has been identified as a positive feature in youth programs. While youth engagement likely benefits generative development, there is no empirical research to date linking them together. Therefore, in this chapter we present survey findings from over 600 youth of diverse backgrounds, from a community sample, aged 12 to 28 years old, who participated in various youth programs across Canada. Our literature review and research findings highlight the importance of fostering youth generativity and note that youth programming supported by adult allies is a fruitful context for this task.

**Keywords:** youth engagement, adult allies, generativity, community, youth programs

#### **1. Introduction**

Generativity involves care and concern for future generations as a legacy of the self [1]. The development of generativity includes the integration of building skills (agency) and contributing to others (communion). Thus, generativity is a key milestone for both individual well-being and a functioning society. Research has highlighted the importance of generativity in youth. Findings point to associations with well-being, moral identity, and community involvement [2]. These findings, however, typically include relatively small sample sizes, an over-reliance on university samples, and are somewhat homogeneous with respect to demographic representation. At the same time, youth engagement with support from adult allies has also been linked to youth identity development [3] and has been identified as a positive feature in youth programs [4].

In this chapter, we examine early generativity in a community sample of approximately 600 youth participating in youth programs from across Canada. We discuss correlates from across a broad range of demographic and background factors, including ethnicity, perceived income, gender, and LGBTQ+ status. Further, we examine associations with youth engagement including perceptions of adults' collaborative support in community programs. Throughout this chapter, we discuss how generativity and youth-adult partnerships inform social contexts such as community-based youth programs.

#### **1.1 Early generativity**

Generativity, the seventh of Erikson's eight stages of psychosocial development, is defined as concern for future generations as a legacy of the self [5]. Generativity carries broad meaning and can refer to motivations, behavior, and even a sense of identity [6]. In midlife, generativity is a core developmental task. As such, it is not surprising that it has been consistently connected to overall well-being, a strong sense of morality, good parenting, career satisfaction, and healthy relationships. Beyond individual benefits, generativity is essential for cultures and societies to grow and thrive [7].

Given the importance of generativity in adulthood, it follows that we should also understand the earlier manifestations and developmental course of generativity in young people [5]. Our own research has been charting the validity and correlates of young people's motivations to be generative, as well as contexts that might support the development of generativity. Overall, generative motivations have been found to be stable in adolescence [8] and associated with positive outcomes for young people, such as higher self-esteem, lower depressive symptoms, higher levels of empathy, and positive identity development [2].

There have also been several studies linking early generativity to youth's involvement in their communities [9]. For example, findings from a large longitudinal sample from Ontario, Canada pointed to stable and strong associations between generativity and community involvement from ages 17 to 23 [10], and in a follow-up study between ages 23 and 32 years [11]. Therefore, adolescents who are more generative may be more involved in the community as they age.

Connected to community engagement is the finding that generativity is embedded in social identities. Often the social groups we identify with inform where we point our generative efforts, and our experiences within our identities inform the traditions we look to uphold or dismantle, and the changes we hope to bring to society. When social identity groups face significant harm and barriers due to stigma or perpetuation of colonial violence, their generative priorities might focus on ending intergenerational cycles, protecting the vulnerable in their community, or dismantling negative stereotypes with more positive lenses demonstrating strength and resilience [12]. For example, researchers who conducted interviews with Indigenous youth ages 15 to 17 years in Hawaii found strong themes of generativity through the preservation of their language, values, and traditions to benefit future generations [13]. In a sample of older LGBTQ+ adults, another study found that generativity themes were salient when participants discussed the difficulties that they faced through the AIDS/HIV pandemic, the stigma that led to barriers to healthcare, concerns for personal safety, and an absence of positive role models [14]. These individuals turned injustices into positive legacies through advocacy work, caring for others, and sharing their stories and history with the next generation. Similarly, a study interviewing Black Americans who survived World War II found that these Americans leaned on their

*Young Canadians' Desire to Change the World and the Adults Who Support Them DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113028*

experiences of suffering in the war to define their generative purpose in the present [15]. Thus, it is important to consider the context of history and cultural backgrounds within our social identities when trying to understand individual motivation and expression of generativity. For these reasons, it is worthwhile to explore a number of micropopulations that have sustained ongoing trauma, and face a real threat to their culture, language, and traditions. Here, generativity often becomes a central task operationalized as preserving a group's history and traditions, as well as advocating to end systemic injustices that continue to cause harm across generations. This aligns with other research that finds that people who experienced extremely negative events might express their generativity through actively working to end the cycle of harm, which Kotre termed "intergenerational buffer" [12].

Generativity is intergenerational, with central generative activities including parenting, mentoring, and teaching [16]. In fact, it has been noted that generativity is a useful theoretical lens for studying intergenerational relationships [16]. Moreover, it has been suggested that intergenerational programming could support the growth of adult generativity [17]. Thus, considering that both adults and youth have capacity for generativity, youth engagement in programs that involve youth-adult partnerships may be an important and unique context for both fostering and achieving generativity.

#### **1.2 Youth engagement as a possible context for the development of generativity**

Youth generativity in the context of youth engagement and youth programs is not well understood, though the importance of adults' generativity in working with youth has been established [18]. In a previous study, we found that the extent to which youth felt engaged psychologically in their favorite activity (e.g., sports, volunteer, religious) was associated with generative motivations [19]. This study, however, did not examine the intergenerational contexts of activities. Both youth and adults note that adult generativity supports youth success in contexts where youth are participating in decision making. Youth engagement is the meaningful involvement of a young person in an activity outside of the self [20]. Youth engagement in the context of community programs typically involves groups of youth working together, in partnership with adults, on projects intended to improve communities, promote social justice, or contribute to a cause [21].

There is much in the developmental context of youth programs that might promote positive development. Larson and colleagues [22, 23] have long noted the rich developmental contexts that community activities afford youth. For some time, research has demonstrated that participation (i.e., physical or virtual presence in programs and activities) is necessary but not sufficient to developmental change [24]. Engagement goes beyond participation; researchers and theorists have discussed a variety of factors, such as affective and cognitive engagement, and youth voice in decision-making, that may constitute 'engagement'. Thus, adults play a key role in youth engagement in sharing decision-making responsibilities, honoring youth voice, and learning from youth.

Youth engagement in youth-adult partnerships is almost certainly multidimensional, involving a variety of factors that could result in developmental change, including the emergence of early generativity. Collaborative relationships are one aspect of youth engagement and, as is typical in youth work, these relationships do not need to be of lasting duration or require a certain level of intimacy. Instead, they likely require that more senior partners in youth-adult relationships work to bring with them a stance that begins with safety and unconditional respect [25]. Those collaborative relationships might allow young people to learn and practice skills and to share their knowledge with others. They

might also allow youth to make decisions with support and encouragement. As youthadult partnerships are often focused on social change (e.g., social justice initiatives), in addition to these collaborative spaces, youth-adult partnerships are settings that can help promote young people's agency, voice, program ownership, and ability to make a meaningful impact [20, 21]. In these settings, young people can see themselves as active participants, take on new responsibilities, explore their identities, and enact their values, all while being exposed to older generative models. In other words, youth engagement in these settings, where youth's potential can be seen and understood as valuable, might reasonably be an ideal setting for youth to explore themselves and their ability to impact the world and thus develop their generativity.

#### **1.3 Youth engagement and generativity in diverse populations**

It is possible that links between youth generativity and engagement differ, depending on demographic and other differences among young people. Little research exists on population differences even in research focusing on adult generativity. Research that does exist on these differences does not paint a consistent picture. Studies have pointed to some gender differences in how generativity relates to agentic and communal motives [26]. Research has found higher levels of generative concern among African Americans compared to White Americans [26]. Finally, work mentioned earlier has found strong themes of generativity in micropopulations such as sexual minorities, or different cultural groups, using qualitative approaches [13–15].

Regarding youth engagement, the picture is again unclear. Youth advisory councils have tended to engage more privileged youth [27, 28], youth in some ethnic communities may be reluctant to participate due to a lack of inclusive practices in many programs [29], and youth participation in programs can decrease as youth age and gain more autonomy over decisions to participate [30]. All of these findings suggest that youth engagement should differ, to some extent, based on demographics or group membership. In our own research, we have not found youth engagement to differ by age or gender [31], or LGBTQ status, ethnicity, immigrant status, or rural or urban residency, although we have found that youth with higher perceived income or socioeconomic status reported more engagement [3, 32]. Other studies have focused on engagement in afterschool programs and youth's civic engagement and have found mixed results. Researchers conducted a latent profile analysis of middle school aged youth participating in a voluntary after school program [33]. They found that youth fell into three categories: moderately engaged, affectively engaged, and disengaged. When they tested for differences in youth-level characteristics, none of the characteristics (grade level, gender, race, and ethnicity) predicted profile membership. Research on civic engagement, involving prosocial and political involvement in communities, suggests that experiencing discrimination can prompt some youth of color to become highly engaged in community social action, while others become disengaged [34].

Links among youth engagement and generativity might also depend on youth differences, but current research is scant. A large meta-analysis found a wide variety of youth outcomes were predicted by afterschool program participation. Interestingly, individual youths' characteristics and demographics did not moderate those associations [34]. In our own work, we have found that having input in decision making in an activity was associated to positive outcomes for youth, and this association was stronger at younger ages [8]. This previous work suggests that the strength of association between engagement and generativity might depend on one's age, but certainly more research is required to uncover this.

#### **1.4 Purpose of study**

In this chapter, we examine early generativity in a community sample of approximately 600 youth participating in youth programs from across Canada. We discuss correlates from across a broad range of demographic and background factors, including immigration, race, gender, and LGBTQ+ status. Further, we examine associations with degree of youth engagement, and perceptions of adult support in community programs. Our chapter discusses how generativity and youth engagement inform social contexts, such as youth programs in community.

In this chapter we explore the following:

#### **2. Method**

Participants were recruited through the Students Commission of Canada's (SCC) partner programs and organizations. As a Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement (CEYE) and a large, national organization, the SCC develops and runs programs, conferences, and events for young people in partnerships across Canada. In 2011, in partnership with youth workers, academics, and youth, they developed the 'Sharing the Stories' research and evaluation platform, which helped to integrate youth's voices into action. The Sharing the Stories platform is available to all partner organizations, helping them gather the voices of a broad range of youth, including those who might be furthest from opportunity, including low-income, racialized, gender-diverse youth, or other marginalized youth populations in Canada. Ethics approval was granted by the institutional Research Ethics Boards of the principal investigators.

Data reported here includes all participating youth (*N* = 627) who completed the youth engagement, generativity, and demographic questions anytime since 2015. Participants completed this survey electronically (68%) or by paper (32%). Participants were between the age of 12 years and 30 years, with a mean age of 18, and 60% were under 18 years of age. With respect to gender, 6.5% identified as non-binary, 58.2% identified as girl (woman) and 35.3% identified as boy (man). About a quarter (26%) identified as belonging to a sexual minority. Most participants identified as primarily North American (27.6%), Asian (20.3%), African (10.5%), Indigenous (10.4%), and Caribbean (11.5%). Further, 12% opted not to disclose their identity. Other groups were represented by less than 1% of the sample. Approximately 14% of participants reported more than one cultural/ethnic group, with the most commonly cited group being North American (5.7% of the sample; the rest cited <1%).

The survey included two measures of youth engagement, and one measure of generativity. The first youth engagement scale indicated adult-supported collaborative learning and decision making (5 items; e.g., "I feel like adults and peers and learning from me.", "I participate in the decisions about group activities.") A second youth engagement scale indicated adult-supported agency and voice (5 items; e.g., "I am involved in discussing issues of respect, conflict, or discipline" and "Adults support me without being condescending or assuming that I need or want their help"). Items were developed over a number of years, through collaboration with youth and staff

at partner organizations, and findings on the development of positive youth-adult relationships in youth participation efforts and youth's right to be heard in organizational contexts [35–37]. Youth generativity evaluated willingness to leave a legacy behind. It was measured with three statements: "I have knowledge and skills that I will pass on to others"; "I think about ways to help others become leaders"; "I feel it is important to help people younger than myself". All responses were measured on a 5-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating greater engagement or higher generativity. The set of measures took about 15 minutes to complete.

#### **3. Results**

#### **3.1 Preliminary results**

We first examined correlations among all of our variables, found in **Table 1**. We found that older youth and young women reported higher youth engagement, and that Indigenous youth reported lower levels of engagement. We tested gender differences in generativity using a one-way ANOVA with three levels. The ANOVA indicates a significant difference, *F*(2,547) = 5.97 *p* < .01, where women (*M* = 4.25, *SD* = .68) indicated higher levels of generativity than men (*M* = 4.01, *SD* = .87), and non-binary youth (*M* = 4.24, *SD* = .82) were not different from any other group. Other potential differences in youth engagement, based on demographic or background factors, were not significant.

Our correlation table indicated that engagement and generativity were related, moderately, in a positive direction. In other words, our evidence indicates that youth who learned and worked well together with adults also reported higher levels of generativity.

*Note. M and SD are used to represent mean and standard deviation, respectively.*

*\* indicates p < .05. \*\* indicates p < .01; t for each of these groups 1 indicates pro group membership 0 indicates non membership. See results below for more information on engagement variables.*

#### **Table 1.**

*Means, standard deviations, and correlations.*

*Young Canadians' Desire to Change the World and the Adults Who Support Them DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113028*

#### **3.2 Associations between generativity and youth engagement**

As preliminary steps to the test of our main hypothesis, we confirmed that our measurement model loaded as expected, with the youth engagement and generativity items loading onto their respective latent variables, and that the measurement structure was consistent (i.e., demonstrated strong invariance) across gender, LGBTQ+ status, and age (under and above age 18) [32]. The engagement items loaded onto two separate (but related) latent variables. The items in the first variable (Engagement 1) were connected to collaborative learning, exploring, and decision making (e.g., "I participate in the decisions about group activities".) The items in the Engagement 2 latent variable centered around leadership and respect, collaboration and partnership (e.g., "Adults support me without being condescending or assuming that I need or want their help"). In this preliminary step, the model performed as expected, indicating that we could move forward in testing our exploratory research questions.

We tested our full model, including age, gender, immigration status (youth born in Canada vs. those not born in Canada), Indigeneity, and perceived income as predictors. Demographic variables that did not contribute were then dropped from the model. Only age and gender remained as controls, indicating that young women and

older youth had higher generativity, when included along with the two youth engagement variables in the model (see **Figure 1**; CFI = .95, RMSEA = .052).

#### **3.3 Are there demographic differences in the strength of association between youth engagement and generativity?**

Based on our findings that age and gender served as significant controls in exploring links between youth engagement and generativity, we tested interactions. We explored interactions between both of the youth engagement variables and both gender and age. We then dropped non-significant interaction terms, until we arrived at a final model in which youth engagement 1 interacted with age. We conducted linear regressions in order to interpret these interactions and we split age into two groups: over and under 18. The regressions indicated that generativity was moderately associated with engagement for youth over 18 years old (β = .20, p < .10) and more strongly associated with engagement below 18 years old (β = .67, p < .001).

#### **4. Discussion**

Increasingly, researchers have found that generativity matters for young people, but research to date has depended on samples that were less diverse and relied heavily on post-secondary student samples. Moreover, while youth engagement has been identified as a promising context for generativity, to our knowledge, no empirical studies have tested this.

Our community sample revealed some interesting patterns regarding generativity. First, the overall mean was quite high (4.17/5). This aligns with other research that reports relatively high scores in youth samples, using a different measure of generativity. Furthermore, our generativity scale was correlated positively with age, which again is not surprising. It was surprising to find that youth who identified as Indigenous, and those not born in Canada (the site of the study) reported slightly lower generativity scores compared to the rest of the sample; those associations did not hold in the larger model. It should be noted, however, that generativity is a multifaceted construct, and measuring it at a population level is challenging because cultural context is extraordinarily important in generative expression. Further, the small amount of research on generativity in Indigenous populations showed that generativity was expressed in themes of reconnecting culture. Considering the items from our scale focus on leadership and individual impacts on the next generation, our measure was perhaps not nuanced enough to capture the most meaningful aspects of generativity in certain cultural and experiential contexts.

Next, our test of associations between youth engagement and generativity revealed that our hypothesis was supported. There was in fact a moderate to strong association between generativity and elements of engagement including leadership and opportunities for decision-making, and positive collaborations with adults. It has been noted that activities provide unique opportunities for young people to build the skills and capacities to prepare them for adulthood. Given that generativity is a central developmental task in adulthood, our findings might provide further support for this claim [22]. Activities which include opportunities for decision-making, leadership, and where adult allies are supportive and collaborative with youth seem to be associated with higher levels of generativity. While these data are correlational, we suggest that this association is likely bi-directional,

*Young Canadians' Desire to Change the World and the Adults Who Support Them DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113028*

in that potentially more generative youth might demonstrate better readiness and interest in these types of activities.

Our results showed that the association between engagement and generativity was stronger for younger people compared to older youth. As we age, opportunities to connect with our generativity grow, and the potential for community programming is less salient. This also aligns with previous research that found that opportunities to provide input into programming was associated with more developmental benefits for younger compared to older adolescents [5].

Overall, this study demonstrates that generativity has important implications in a diverse sample of young people. Moreover, this preliminary evidence indicates that we need to do further work into how youth engagement opportunities can foster generativity.

#### **4.1 Strengths and limitations**

It is important to keep in mind the limitations of this work. These findings do not present well established measures of youth generativity, as more robust measures of youth generativity do not currently exist [2]. As well, a small number of established youth engagement measures exist, representing different facets of youth-adult partnership and youth [21].

It should be noted that these data are correlational and therefore do not give any information regarding the direction of the association. We suspect the association would be bidirectional: settings that are conducive to youth engagement and healthy youth adult partnerships support the growth of youth generativity, and generative youth are better able to engage and get support in these settings. In order to confirm our hypotheses, longitudinal research is needed.

Despite these limitations, the study also carries some important and unique strengths that advance our understanding of youth development. One strength is that we used a community-based sample, and we were able to explore individual demographic differences in ways relatively unexamined in past studies. This approach, however, underlined the importance of cultural context in understanding generativity. Much more work needs to be done using multiple approaches to understanding youth generativity in diverse populations. This could include asking young people about not only future generations, but also about preservation of cultural history, traditions, and practices. Moreover, qualitative work would support a more nuanced and contextual approach to this inquiry.

#### **5. Conclusions**

Caring for future generations and building our capacity to do so matters for youth and adults alike. In this work we presented evidence suggesting that youth engagement in settings where they have decision making opportunities and are working with supportive adults might be an important context to foster early generativity. We are also calling for further research to explore in more nuanced ways how and why young people from various backgrounds and experiences express their generativity.

#### **Acknowledgements**

The authors would like to thank the Students Commission of Canada and their partners for their continued work with young people that together create spaces to celebrate and respect youth voices. We would also like to thank the young people who were involved in these community programs and participated in Sharing the Stories. Without your input, there would be no knowledge to share! Special thank you to the research team at Bishop's especially Élisabeth Legendre who helped to obtain and process the data. This chapter was also supported by funding from the SSHRC Canada Research Chair program granted to the first author.

### **Conflict of interest**

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

### **Author details**

Heather L. Lawford1 \*, Heather L. Ramey2 , Yana Berardini3 , Christa Romaldi4,5 and Nishad Khanna4,5

1 Bishop's University, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada

2 Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

3 Trent University (GTA Durham), Ontario, Canada

4 The Students Commission of Canada (SCC), Ontario, Canada

5 Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement, Ontario, Canada

\*Address all correspondence to<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

*Young Canadians' Desire to Change the World and the Adults Who Support Them DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113028*

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[36] Kirby P, Lanyon C, Cronin K, Sinclair C. Building a culture of participation: Involving children and young people in policy, service planning, delivery and evaluation: Handbook of Department for Education and Skills. 2003. Available from: https://dera.ioe. ac.uk/id/eprint/17522/1/Handbook%20 -%20Building%20a%20Culture%20 of%20Participation.pdf

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**Chapter 8**

## Religiosity, Spirituality, and Well-Being in Emerging Adulthood

*Anișoara Pavelea and Lorina Culic*

#### **Abstract**

This chapter analyzes the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being in emerging adulthood. A primary contribution of this analysis is an examination of possible mediators.  Participants in the study are 319 Romanian social sciences students, aged between 18 and 24 (Mage = 19,87, SDage = 1,39), urban (82%), mostly female (76%), and orthodox (74%). The results of the study confirm that religiosity and spirituality are important protective factors. Well-being is higher for emerging adults who rate their mental health highly, and this appears to mediate the religiosity-well-being relationship. Implications for therapeutic practice and communication between counselors and clients are discussed at the end of the paper.

**Keywords:** religiosity and spirituality, health, meaning in life, satisfaction with life, well-being, emerging adults

#### **1. Introduction**

Religion has been considered for a long time an important psychological factor that can influence many people's lives under multiple aspects [1–3], providing an identity, useful social support, and a coherent framework for finding answers to existential questions [4]. Religion offers to some individuals a higher level of satisfaction with life [5, 6], helps reduce depressive symptoms and anxiety levels, increases optimism level, and enables them to better emotionally adapt to difficult times [7, 8], overcoming traumatic experiences and loss [9]. Previous research showed that religiosity and spirituality are both strongly associated with mental health [10, 11] and well-being [12, 13].

#### **2. Religiosity and spirituality**

The distinction between religiosity and spirituality has long been debated within the psychology of religion, a science with "a long past but a short history" [14], and "long on data and short on theory" [15]. For decades, even though the most relevant papers in the psychology of religion [8, 16–20] have approached the history of the

domain, its topics, main concepts, and dimensions of religiosity and spirituality, they have failed to offer an integrative framework or a conceptual model that would allow researchers to think, integrate, and develop new theories and hypotheses [21].

Different definitions have been given to religion over time. Starting with Allport's [22] famous contrast between intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity, the first one refers to individuals who live their religion and see religious faith as a goal, and the second denotes the use of religion strictly in a utilitarian sense, for the attainment of social gains. While Argyle & Beit-Hallahmi [23] regard religion substantially as "a system of beliefs in a divine or superhuman power, and practices of worship or other rituals directed toward such power" [p. 1], Dollahite [24] refers to it as "a covenant faith community with teachings and narratives that enhance the search for the sacred" [p. 5], and Peteet [25] emphasizes upon "the commitment to beliefs and practices characteristic of particular traditions" [p. 237].

Spirituality has also captured several views over time, from Peck [26] quoting Elkins et al.'s perspective of "a way of being and experiencing that comes about through the awareness of a transcendent dimension and that is characterized by certain identifiable values regarding the self, life, and whatever one considers to be the ultimate" [p. 10], to Doyle's [27] "search for existential meaning" [p. 302] or Armstrong's [28] "presence of a relationship with a Higher Power that affects the way in which one operates in the world" [p. 3]. Today's increasing tendency of embracing spirituality over religiosity can be explained by looking at the individualistic times we travel and analyzing the decrease in traditional authority and the continuous rejection of cultural norms, especially by the younger generation.

Mirroring the scientific literature, in time, the public's perception of the two terms has long evolved. Therefore, today, the great majority of individuals refer to religion as primarily being associated with religious practices and engagement, so to say with the organizational aspects of faith, while spirituality tends to be associated with the subjective search for meaning and for the sacred in a diversity of traditional and nontraditional settings: from prayer to meditation, from church, synagogue, and mosque attendance, to feasting and religious document study, to monastic life and walking in nature, sexuality, social actions, psychotherapy, or listening to symphonic compositions [29]. Despite the long debates over the definitions of religiosity and spirituality, most authors today agree that both spirituality and religion are complex, latent, multidimensional, and multilevel concepts [30] and tend to agree that the blind distinction between religiosity and spirituality is "a dangerous road to be traveled" [31, 32]. Even though religion has long been regarded as dogmatic and rigid, static, and institutional, based on faith, and measured through practices and religious engagement, spirituality was seen, in opposition, as subjective, emanating from personal experience, based on selfdetermination and personal development, functional, and dynamic. Not without difficulty, bridging points have been identified between the two converging views under concepts like a sense of meaning and purpose in life [33], connecting to self, to others, and to the transcendent [34, 35] or the belief in a unifying force [36, 37]. We have to agree that both religiousness and spirituality can be understood as active processes of self-discovery and self-transformation.

By overcoming the prejudicial labeling of religiousness and spirituality and embracing a wider image of the two sides of one coin, psychology of religion studies could align, as Park [38] says, with the latest trends emerging from positive psychology, medicine, and neuroscience.

#### **3. Religiosity, spirituality, and health**

Multiple studies have analyzed the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and health. *American Psychologist* has dedicated an entire 2003 issue to it and recent clinical psychology and psychotherapy handbooks encompass increasingly results coming from the psychology of religion into their psychological and medical practices. Recently, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being has been investigated, with multiple studies showing that religiosity and spirituality is still a crucial resource during difficult life events [39–41]. In a meta-analysis, based on 75 studies (ranging from 1990 to 2010), approaching the relationship between spirituality, religiosity, and other psychological variables in adolescents and emerging adults (N = 66.273), Yonker et al. [42] have found that religiosity and spirituality have a positive effect on health, with significant effect sizes of religiosity and spirituality on risk behavior, −.17, depression, −.11, wellbeing, .16, and self-esteem, .11. In line with these results, Green and Elliot [43] found that religiosity has a strong effect on happiness and health, regardless of religious affiliation, religious activities, job satisfaction, marital happiness, social support, or financial status. Other studies have shown there is a link between religiosity and spirituality constructs, such as closeness to God [44, 45], motivating forces [46], religious support [47, 48], and religious and spiritual struggle [16, 49, 50]. McCullough et al.'s [51] meta-analysis, based on 42 independent samples, has shown a significant positive correlation between religious involvement (especially church attendance) and lower mortality. Attending worship once a week tends to have an effect on a higher life expectancy of 7 to 14 years [52]. Comparable results were found by Lucchetti et al. [53] and Powell et al. [54] who have shown that religiosity and spirituality reduce the mortality rate by up to 24%.

Other studies, especially cross-sectional ones, have drawn the conclusion that people with higher religious involvement tend to engage less frequently in sexually risky behaviors and substance abuse, while in some cases exercising more and following a healthy diet [55–61]. In a longitudinal study, expanded over three decades, Strawbridge et al. [62] found that, especially for women, weekly attendance at religious services is associated with improved mental health, more satisfying social relationships, and marital stability. Other studies [63] indicate that religious families benefit from stronger social support and report lower divorce rates and more stable social climate, with positive parental practices and better child adjustment.

The link between religiosity, spirituality, and religious coping has been studied extensively and authors like Pargament [8, 41] and Lee [64] have shown that religious and spiritual people tend to use coping mechanisms more effectively, enabling them to deal with stressful situations and to maintain a higher level of general health and life satisfaction.

The meta-analytic research conducted by Smith et al. [2], based on 147 independent studies (N = 98.975), identified a modest negative correlation of −.09 between religiousness and depressive symptoms, with the results not being moderated by gender, age, or ethnicity. Still, for those individuals who avoid difficulties through religious activities and blame God for their tragedy, higher levels of depressive symptoms were registered. In other words, these are people with negative religious coping and extrinsic religious orientation. Braam et al. [65] found similar results after developing a longitudinal study in the Netherlands, with a representative national sample of 1840 people aged between 55 and 85.

Religious participation was also found to be a strong protective factor against suicide, even after controlling for gender, age, race, marital status, and social contact frequency [66]. People who attend worship places regularly are four times less inclined to have suicidal thoughts and attempts, even among clinical populations.

Attitudes toward forgiveness, which are important in most religious and spiritual traditions, may have significant consequences on health by reducing rumination, facilitating the emergence of positive emotions and more adaptive coping strategies, and, therefore, reducing the level of chronic stress [67, 68]. Moreover, religious and spiritual people use preventive medical services more frequently and report higher levels of treatment compliance [69]. Like religiosity, spirituality has been shown to have strong links to both mental and physical health [70, 71].

In conclusion, research approaching the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and health [7, 56, 72, 73] uncovered five main potential complex and multifaceted mechanisms that seem to be consistent across cultures and countries:

Still, most studies conclude that these mechanisms are interdependent, and their methodological designs try to isolate and control variables, to test more and more complex mediation and moderation models.

As Oman & Thoresen [56] say: "The present is an extremely exciting time for the emerging transdisciplinary field of religion, spirituality, and health. […] Many psychologists and religionists, but perhaps not enough, are moving beyond earlier mutual stereotypes and learning to collaborate. Only through such collaboration, we believe, can we apply the fullest range of knowledge and wisdom to fostering human health and well-being in the context of today's dire global needs" [p. 455].

Even though most of the studies focus on the positive influence of religiosity and spirituality on well-being, some of them also cover the downsides, such as refusing to receive medical treatment, to vaccinate children, to accept blood transfusions [69], or becoming victims of physical and sexual abuse [74, 75].

Given the difficulties in operationalizing the complexity of the meanings of spirituality and religiosity, few empirical studies on well-being have concentrated on the spiritual aspects of behavior. Most studies based on national samples have used a single dimension of religion, like religious attendance, due to the fact that researchers fail to come to a common ground when they speak of religiosity and spirituality dimensions and their relationship, either positive or negative, to subjective well-being [76]. Therefore, recent studies signal the importance of approaching the link between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being in a multidimensional manner [47, 77].

Bearing that in mind, the current research measures religiosity and spirituality based on ten subscales, in a sample of Christian urban emerging adults, with a university background. Satisfaction with life, meaning in life, and perceived physical and mental health are used as mediators in the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being.

The study of religiousness in youth sets a series of challenges due to age, as well as ample physical and cognitive development, changes in relation to the social environment, autonomy, and societal expectations. Emerging adulthood is an age proposed by Arnett [78], as an accurate description of individuals ages 18 to 24 (extended afterward to 29), from industrial societies. It is characterized by multiple attempts at exploration and examination of potential trajectories, a process that eases the stabilization of roles and engagements in areas like personal relationships, work, and perspectives on life. The five aspects defining emerging adulthood are: identity exploration, being self-focused, dealing with a high level of instability, "feeling in-between," and experiencing a sense of multiple possibilities for the future. Moving away from family, gaining autonomy, and developing relationships with diverse people holding different worldviews and opinions may intensify individuals' identity exploration providing them with a safe space to explore and to renegotiate their religiosity [79]. It is an age when youth redefines their relationship with religiosity and spirituality, tries to answer manifold questions regarding the transcendent, tries to experiment with multiple orientations, and seeks individual answers to spiritual quests.

Which is the role religiosity and spirituality play in potentiating subjective well-being and how emerging adults' health can influence this outcome is the main question of our study.

#### **4. Research objectives**

The main objective of the study revolves around testing the mediating role of meaning in life, satisfaction with life, and health in the relationship between emerging adults' religiosity, spirituality, and well-being. Three mediation models will be run to see which of these three mediators explains a higher percentage of the abovementioned relationship.

*H2:* Meaning in life mediates the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being in emerging adults.

*H3:* Emerging adults' perceived physical (H3a) and mental health (H3b) mediates the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being.

### **5. Method**

#### **5.1 Participants**

Participants in the study are 319 Caucasian social sciences students, aged between 18 and 24 (Mage = 19,87, SDage = 1,39), urban (82%), predominantly women (76%), and orthodox (74%). Answers were collected online. All participants have completed an informal consent and have been informed concerning the privacy of personal data.

#### *5.1.1 Measures*

	- 2.*Perceived health* was assessed using two items: 1. In general, how would you label your physical health? 2. How would you label your psychological health? Answers were registered on a nine-point Likert scale (from (1) terribly rickety to (9) excellent).
	- 3.*Life satisfaction scale* [84], composed of five items, scored from one (strongly disagree) to seven (strongly agree), with excellent psychometric properties (Cronbach's α = .87). The overall score ranges from 5 to 35, with higher levels indicating sterling life satisfaction. It is one of the most often used scales for testing life satisfaction and its psychometric properties have been tested by multiple researchers [85–87]. Poff et al. Diener [88], who gave a wide definition to life satisfaction, seen as "a conscious cognitive judgment of one's life in which the criteria for judgment are up to the person" and the scale has been designed to assess the life satisfaction with the respondent's life as a whole, not focusing on different life domains.
	- 4.*Meaning in life* [89] is a bidimensional scale, including the presence of meaning (5 items; ex. "My life has a clear sense of purpose," Cronbach's a = .83) and search for meaning ("I am seeking a purpose of meaning for my life," Cronbach's a = .88). Answers are registered on a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from (1) completely false) to (7) completely true. The scale has good internal consistency, has been translated to more than 20 languages, and is used extensively in ample

research, in studies like Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative [90], or the International Wellbeing Study, conducted by Aaron Jarden, president of New Zealand Association of Positive Psychology [91].

5.*The well-being scale* [92] consists of 18 items, three statements for each of its six areas of psychological well-being: autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance. Respondents rate statements on a scale of one (indicating strong disagreement) to six (strong agreement). Cronbach's α = .75.

#### **6. Results**

#### **6.1 Preliminary analyses**

Descriptive statistics and the correlation matrix of study variables are presented in **Table 1**. All scales present good psychometric properties. Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness and Spirituality has a Cronbach's α of .95, perceived health .66, satisfaction with life .87, presence of meaning in life .83, .88 for search for meaning, and .75 for well-being. Almost all correlations were statistically significant, except the one with age.

#### **6.2 Measurement models**

The confirmatory factor analysis indicated a main factor for Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness and Spirituality explaining over 43% of the variance, one for life satisfaction (68%) and two factors for meaning in life, in accordance with the literature [89], namely, presence of meaning and search for meaning.

#### **Table 1.**

*Descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients for observed variables.*

#### **6.3 Mediation analysis**

Using Hayes PROCESS 3.4, we ran the mediation analysis, running the fourth model (**Figure 1** and **Table 2**) [89, 93].

*H1: Satisfaction with life mediates the relationship between emerging adults' religiosity, spirituality, and well-being.*

After running Hayes model of mediation, we can observe that for a sample of 319, the effect of religiosity and spirituality on satisfaction with life is statistically significant, a = .06, t(317) = 5.60, 95% CI [.04, .92], p < .00.  After introducing satisfaction with life mediates in the model, religiosity, and spirituality loses its effect on well-being (c' = .01, t(316) = 0.70, 95% CI [−.02, .04], p = 0.48). Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness and Spirituality's indirect effect on wellbeing through satisfaction with life is statistically significant, IE = ab = .05, 95% CI. Results show that 71% of the total effect of religiosity and spirituality on well-being is explained by the satisfaction with life and only 29% operates directly.

*H2: Meaning in life, with its two components, presence in life (H2a), and search for meaning (H2b) is a mediator of the relationship between emerging adults' religiosity, spirituality, and well-being.*

The mediation analysis shows a direct relationship between religiosity and spirituality and meaning in life (a = .06, t(317) = 5.77, 95% CI [.04, .08], p < .00), and between meaning in life and well-being (b = .37, t(316) = 3.65, 95% CI [.17, .58]. p < .00). After introducing meaning in life in the mediation model, religiosity and spirituality holds its effect on well-being (c' = .04, t(316) = 2.22, 95% CI [.00, .08], p = .02), indicating that the meaning in life cannot be considered a mediator in the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being. Therefore, we have decided to run the mediation model separately for the two dimensions of the scale: the presence of meaning and search for meaning. It was only the presence of meaning

**Figure 1.**

*Simple mediation model for satisfaction in life as a moderator for the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being.*

#### **Table 2.**

*Unstandardized indirect effects with bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals.*

*Religiosity, Spirituality, and Well-Being in Emerging Adulthood DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113963*

that has proved to be a mediator in the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being (IE = ab = .06, 95% BootCI [.04, .08], p = .02), explaining 88% of the total effect (R = .49, F = 52.01, p < .00) (**Figure 2**).

*H3: Emerging adults' perceived status of physical (H3a) and mental health (H3b) mediates the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being.*

When analyzing physical health as a mediator of religiosity, spirituality, and well-being, we have identified a direct effect between religiosity, spirituality, and physical health (a = .01, t(316) = 3.09, 95% CI [.00, .01], p < .00), also a direct effect for the relationship between physical health and well-being (b = 2.17, t(316) = 5.57, 95% CI [1.40, 2.94], p < .00), but when introducing the mediator, the direct effect between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being was held (c' = .05, t(316) = 2.60, 95% CI [.01, .09], p < .00) and, therefore, we had to reject the hypothesis (**Figure 3**).

**Figure 2.**

*Simple mediation model for the presence of meaning as a mediator in the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being.*

#### **Figure 3.**

*Simple mediation model for physical health as a mediator in the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being.*

#### **Figure 4.**

*Simple mediation model for psychological health as a mediator in the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being.*

For H3b, although the perceived mental health status proved to be a good mediator in the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being, the data showed a direct effect of religiosity on mental health (a = .01, t(316) = 3.45, 95% CI [.58, .02], p < .00) and a similar one for students' mental health and well-being (b = 2.71, t(316) = 8.67, 95% CI [2.09, 3.32], p < .00) (**Figure 4**).

After introducing the perceived mental health as a mediator, the indirect effect of religiosity and spirituality on well-being is .03, 95% BootCI [.00, .09]), representing 79% of the total effect (R = .47, F = 40.19).

#### **7. Conclusions and discussion**

Hypotheses H1, H2a, and H3b are supported, indicating that satisfaction with life, presence of meaning, and perceived mental health status are mediators of the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being, explaining similar percentages of the relationship with 71, 88, and 79%, respectively. Even though previous studies show that meaning in life mediates the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being, the results do not fully sustain this conclusion. One explanation would be that emerging adults are at the age of defining their identity, searching for meaning in life, exploring identity statuses, and for those who have already found a purpose in life, religiosity, and spirituality can provide an enhanced well-being. These individuals feel the need to identify the meaning and the significance of their existence, a mission beyond the daily agenda, and the fact that they can find a life goal that satisfies their expectations, dreams, and hopes, seems to be enough to ensure them a comfortable psychological well-being. Religion, through its teachings, beliefs, commitment, spiritual experiences, and practices, can shape their purpose in life. It helps emerging adults frame their identity facets in a coherent image, congruent with their vision of the world. Religiosity and spirituality can offer a coherent framework for finding answers to existential questions, as Elliott and Hayward [4] assert.

Satisfaction with life could be the missing link between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being in emerging adults. Individuals reporting higher religiosity and spirituality tend to appreciate more positive aspects of their lives, to be grateful for what they have, and to be satisfied with the conditions of their lives more than those who do not use this filter. Religion insists upon forgiveness and making peace with the past.

It is therefore understood why the perceived mental health status mediates the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being, as those who identify with a better mental health tend to assign it to religiosity and spirituality and to translate it in terms of subjective well-being, due to the fact that they see themselves in a positive light, have meaningful relationships with others, embrace their flaws and try to integrate them in a coherent life story, they find that they benefit from unconditional support when dealing with difficult problems, hold faith that someone is watching over them and guides their steps toward positive actions. Still, one must take into account that holding responsibility for his/her life and using free will ties with a strong sense of duty for oneself and others.

#### **8. Limitations of the research**

Next to its contributions, the current study has several limitations. First, it is a cross-sectional study, testing differences between, not within individuals, the reason why the results could reflect more the characteristics of the sample, related to the moment of the research, to the composition, cultural, social, and religious characteristics of the sample. Based on a relatively homogenous sample of university students, predominantly orthodox, urban, and educated, caution is recommended in trying to generalize the results to the entire category of emerging adults. Even though mediation models test direct links and effects, longitudinal studies with several waves of collecting data could be more efficient in capturing these relationships and could supplement the knowledge volume with valuable insights.

#### **9. Implications and future research perspectives**

Studying the link between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being in emerging adults allows career counselors, personal development advisors, psychologists, and psychotherapists who are less inclined to embrace religious phenomena to understand their clients' perspective and to use a wider analysis grid. By framing the ten subscales of Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness and Spirituality, psychologists can find valuable anchors for building the therapeutic relationship, for developing topics of discussion and therapy, according to each client's characteristics and situation. This way, they can better understand the needs and concerns of their clients, identifying the role of religiosity and spirituality in reaching, and maintaining psychological well-being. Discussing with them about life satisfaction, meaning in life, and other aspects related to psychological health could open a window of opportunities for implementing effective therapeutic strategies.

The results support Moreira-Almeida et al. [94] perspective, who claim that through gaining a better understanding of the importance of religious aspects in individuals' lives, psychologists and counselors will be better equipped at providing mental health services, and through rigorous research, new ways of relieving pain and suffering can be found. Following Pargament's line of work [8], this chapter has shown that religiosity and spirituality influence our mental health and well-being. An in-depth understanding of religiosity and spirituality will allow psychologists, counselors, and other mental health providers to fulfill their mission of alleviating suffering and helping people live meaningful lives [94].

Numerous studies have shown that religiosity and spirituality play a significant role in enhancing individuals' psychological well-being, but given the fact that religiosity and spirituality are multidimensional, latent, and multilevel concepts, lines of investigation need to be expanded, mediation, moderation, and structural equation modeling and big data studies need to be conducted in order to advance knowledge in the field. Using Herzog's typology of emerging adults' religiosity [95] and using more heterogeneous samples could provide a more nuanced image of the phenomenon. A better collaboration between researchers coming from different areas and fields of research, with different cultural backgrounds, looking at an old topic from a new angle, setting aside all preconceptions and stereotypes, and focusing on research implications for individuals' well-being is welcome.

In today's increasingly polarized societies, where religion still plays a significant role, religiosity and spirituality can act as integrating factors, offering psychological comfort and well-being, and gathering public opinion and debate around a common ground, like finding meaning and purpose through the cultivation of positive values.

#### **Acknowledgements**

This work was supported by CORE—Communication and Social Innovation Research Centre, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania, and by the 2022–2023 Babes-Bolyai Development Fund.

### **Author details**

Anișoara Pavelea\* and Lorina Culic Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

\*Address all correspondence to<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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#### **Chapter 9**

How Can Social Expectations and Related Stress among Adolescents and Young Adults Be Better Coped with through Practicing Yoga?

*Ingunn Hagen*

#### **Abstract**

In this chapter, I discuss how practicing yoga was experienced by adolescents and young adults and how such experiences seem to contribute to better coping with stress. As a contextualization, I will describe the current challenges for young people, such as social expectations and norms related to school/education, social media, and their life generally. Practicing yoga seems to allow for a "time out" from social expectations, tension, and stress, and thus create space for personal development. The discussed results are drawn from our qualitative study of adolescents and young adults, examining the potential of yoga practice for coping with stress, and the ability to improve mental health and increase well-being. The sample size consisted of 14 adolescents and young adults in Trondheim, Norway, in the age range of 12 to 29 years. There were two major themes identified in the data material: 1. yoga as a self-developmental activity, and 2. yoga as a "break" or sanctuary from social and societal demands. I will be paying attention to the second theme here. I conclude the chapter, that yoga is facilitating the way adolescents and young adults deal with societal demands and stressful expectations, which seems to improve their mental health and well-being.

**Keywords:** young people and social expectations, yoga for coping with stress, yoga as a sanctuary, yoga as "time out", qualitative yoga research

#### **1. Introduction**

The young generation in Norway, like elsewhere, experiences a lot of pressure to perform well, in school and other areas of life. This leads to feelings of stress, tension, and reduced well-being. In this article, I discuss how the social expectations and stress experienced by young people may be better coped with by practicing yoga. The discussion is based on our study of how yoga is experienced by adolescents and young adults, and to what extent practicing yoga seems to contribute to psychological well-being. As

a background, we will discuss the current challenges for adolescents and young adults and how these contribute to daily stress and impair their well-being. Furthermore, we will address what yoga is and how research discusses how yoga potentially can contribute to adolescents' and young adults' mastery of stress in their lives and well-being. We will illustrate some of the benefits of yoga by sharing narratives from adolescents and young adult's experiences with yoga. The purpose of the study was to examine how practicing yoga was experienced and to understand how yoga may impact coping with stress and psychological well-being in everyday life for adolescents and young adults. Our interview material consists of 14 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with young people in the age range of 12 to 29 years old. Along with presenting the main results from our study, we will discuss and interpret the meaning of our findings.

#### **2. Experienced pressure and stress among young people**

There has been much focus on the increased pressures and expectations young people seem to experience in their everyday lives [1]. A recent study reported that mental health has been decreasing among adolescents and young adults during the last three decades [2]. For example, there have been increasing cases of anxiety and depression among young people, as well as lower levels of life satisfaction in the last decade. Experienced stress and depressive thoughts were especially prevalent among young females.  Other major stressors for young people were issues of concern, like climate change, social injustice, and threats to democracy. For many, however, the major stressor was increased performance pressure in school, which Krogstad et al. [2] attribute to neoliberal ideology, which has brought more emphasis on competition in recent years.

Another study that focused on adolescents found similar tendencies of stress and mental health challenges, again attributed to performance pressure in school, but also to increased social expectations of success in other aspects of life [3]. As is the case for young people in many countries, most young people in Norway are heavy users of social media [4]. The social media platforms are designed for addiction, so adolescents and young adults often have a high degree of mastery over digital media, these media also, to various degrees, have "mastery" over them [5, 6]. Particularly, the use of smartphones for social media can result in norms of "being on" and constant social availability [7]. This may result in sleep deprivation and increased stress [8, 9]. Sleep deprivation over time may have a negative impact on emotions, and thus reduce young people's sense of well-being [10].

Thus, the lives of young people can be characterized by stress, pressure, and digital overstimulation, creating concern in how such pressures create stressful lives for young people [2]. Still, while stress levels vary, as pointed out by Bakken [11] young people typically experience pressure and stress related to education, and body ideals to look thin, fit, and have a six-pack stomach. Many also internalize expectations of being popular and successful according to norms conveyed by social media. Norwegian young people are heavy users of social media, which has increased through their use of smartphones during the last decade [4]. While difficult to measure, young people generally spend numerous hours in front of screens, both at school and in their leisure time. You hardly see a young person today without a mobile phone in their hand, and many feel expectations about being available 24/7 [5, 6]. The norm of constant availability together with an increasing lack of physical activity led to sleep problems, and both reinforced young people's stress levels and increased their problems [12, 13].

#### *How Can Social Expectations and Related Stress among Adolescents and Young Adults Be Better… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113961*

Still, young people themselves often attribute their stress levels and mental health challenges to the demands put on them in the education system. Particularly, young people with middle-class parents felt that the parents reinformed the pressure to perform well in school, and thus contributing to the young people relating their self-worth to their achievements in school [14]. For both the parents and the young people, the concerns were about future security in the form of future educational and job opportunities. However, most Norwegian young people were found to enjoy well-being and were content with their lives [11]. Still, there were identified numerous threats to well-being, such as higher drug consumption, more violence, increased feelings of loneliness, and generally less optimism about the future. Other risk factors were related to increased screen time and social media use, as well as more young people experiencing boredom and less well-being at school.

No wonder that "generation achievement" ("generasjon prestasjon" in Norwegian) has become a label for young people [15]. "Generation achievement" refers to a cultural climate of pressure, for example, in school, in sports, related to the body, and in social media [16].1 School is the main stressor, but young people vary in how much it stresses them. Still, young people experienced it as important to perform well in school and higher education, as getting a job without having an education has become increasingly difficult. Thus, young people express that they feel pressure and a sense of stress related to their future possibilities for jobs and careers [11]. There is a sense of performance anxiety, and young people use words like worrying, sleep difficulties, a sense of hopelessness, and toil to describe how they feel. However, the concept of generation-high performance goes beyond expectations related to perform well at school. There are also expectations to perform well and be successful in other areas of life, like being good-looking, being fit and healthy, and being popular. There is a future disciplining, and a squeeze between educational pressure and other norms for success [15]. Many young people also feel that it is their own fault if they do not succeed in all areas of life, due to the general expectation that individuals have become responsible for their own happiness [12, 17]. Young people have a lot of choices, but the norms of success in all areas of life, reduce their experienced room for action, and induce stress and fear of not being good enough.

As we have seen, there is a general sense of stress in the lives of adolescents and young adults. But what is stress? The concept of stress was coined by Hans Selye, a medical doctor and endocrinologist who wrote numerous books and reports about stress, including the book *The Stress of Life* (1956). He defined stress as a "non-specific response of the body to any demand" [18]. Selye also linked how the body coped with stress to the hypothalamic-pituitary axis. It is important also to realize the psychological aspect of stress, that our perception of stress is in the "eye of the beholder:" what is perceived as stressful by one person, might not be perceived so by another person. For the one who is triggered by a stimulus perceived as a "stressor," there will be a stress reaction, which typically starts with an alarm reaction, then a resistance phase, and is often followed by an exhaustion phase. As the perception of stress varies it is also possible to define stress as an exaggerated response to a change in the environment, externally or internally [19]. Stress means activation of the sympathetic part of the autonomous nervous system, which can trigger fright, fight, flight or freeze reactions, with the release of related bodily hormones. While sympathetic activation is important to perform well, long-term experiences of stress will drain our mental and physical health.

1 See also https://utdanningsforskning.no/artikler/2018/generasjon-prestasjon-ungdoms-opplevelse-avpress-og-stress/

#### **3. Yoga and its potential impact**

In the Western world, yoga is often associated with slim, female yoga practitioners in tight-fitting suits, because that is how yoga is often portrayed in traditional and online media. But yoga is an ancient Indian practice suitable for all people, both women and men, as well as for people of all ages. While many in the West associate yoga with physical exercises (asanas), which require a great degree of bodily flexibility, yoga also includes breathing exercises (pranayama), meditation, and more. In the book *Yogaboken. Pust og bevegelse,* the authors describe yoga as a classical, Indian philosophical system, which also includes a number of methods and mind/ body techniques for bringing stillness and self-insight [20]. These techniques include the cultivation of feelings, thoughts, and actions. Moreover, the purpose of yoga is primarily to get to know oneself, to develop awareness, and the ability to perceive. Thus, yoga is about self-discovery and personal tranformation.2

Yoga has increased in popularity in recent years and 300 million people are now practicing yoga worldwide.3 As a background to understand how yoga may contribute to well-being and stress reduction, I will describe some central aspects of yoga. Yoga is a Sanskrit word, which means union or uniting, referring to the union of body, minds, and spirit. The often-quoted definition of yoga is "yoga chittivrtti nirodhah," the second Sutra in the ancient, classical text, Patanjali's *Yoga Sutras*. There are numerous translations of this definition, for example: "Yoga is about stilling the fluctuations of the mind" [21], "Yoga is the stilling of mental turbulence" ([22], p. 16). Modern yoga is very diverse, and there are many yogic traditions. However, a common trait in classical yoga is often Patanjali's eight limbs or Ashtangas. These limbs consist of: Yamas (social restrictions), Niyamas (internal disciplines), Asana (physical postures), Pranayama (control of life energy through breath), Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation), and Samadhi (union or integration) (see [21]). Patanjali eight limbs can also be formulated in one sentence: "Yoga consists of observances, abstinences, posture, control of life force, turning the senses inward, concentration, meditation, and superconsciousness or reintegration" ([22], p. 16). This is the philosophical basis for yoga.

There are various aspects of yoga emphasized by different authors, but a common trait is that yoga is about getting to know yourself, and developing your ability for self-reflection [20]. Yoga can also be perceived as a lifestyle, or way of life. The Indian yoga teacher Gitananda writes: "I prefer that you accept Yoga as a way of life, a way of integrating your whole nature, so that all aspects of your life work in harmony, one with another" ([23], p. 1). The above-mentioned eight limbs of yoga are seen as a precondition for yoga as a way of life. The point of integration, as indicated in the Sanskrit word "yui" (union, as mentioned above), is also emphasized by Bhogal in his book *Yoga & Mental Health & Beyond. A Guide to Self-Managemen*t, where he writes: "Yoga literally means 'Integration' at all levels of existence. Yoga is both 'State' and 'Process'. As a process, it is a means to Integration. As a state, it is a psycho-physiological balance, signifying a holistic personality integration" ([24], p. 2). Cook-Cottone [25] emphasizes that yoga philosophy views the experience of self as dwelling in two worlds: an inner world of thoughts, emotions, and sensations and the outer world where we interact with and relate to others. When yoga increases our integration, this will promote a more harmonic relationship to the external world, as we become less

2 See for example https://viniyoga.com/about/what-is-viniyoga/

3 https://www.thegoodbody.com/yoga-statistics/

*How Can Social Expectations and Related Stress among Adolescents and Young Adults Be Better… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113961*

susceptible to social expectations, and often closer to our "true selves." Thus, yoga can be described as a tool for self-development.

Others have portrayed yoga as a process of conscious evolution through creating a four- or five-fold awareness: This is awareness about the body, mind, and emotions and a meta-awareness, which presupposes an awareness about one's lack of awareness [23]. Yoga can also be defined as "skill in action," which increases one's life mastery capacity, resilience, as weak as emotional balance. Practicing yoga can contribute to balance in the autonomic nervous system, by activating the para-sympathetic part, which is the basis for rest and digestion, more than the sympathetic part, which induces activation and sometimes stresses. The goal of yoga is to achieve autonomic balance, as neither sympathetic nor para-sympathetic dominance is ideal [26]. Thus, yoga has the potential to improve all aspects of our health, including emotional, mental, physical, social, and spiritual [27]. Some authors, such as Gitananda [23] also point out that the goal of yoga is Samadhi or Cosmic Consciousness. Similarly, according to Yogendra and Hansaji "yoga primarily means samadhi, and not union" ([28], p. 4). To these authors, Samadhi is about concentration, in other words our mind is concentrated, content, focused, and stable. In her recent book *Hva er yoga?* (What is yoga?) Wiel [29] acknowledges the diversity in definitions and understandings of yoga. However, she also emphasizes that in yoga one is learning to cope with stress by learning how to regulate oneself.

#### **3.1 Yoga for coping with stress: some research findings**

Yoga is an ancient body-mind practice, now regarded as an effective tool to promote general physical and mental health, especially to reduce stress [30]. Several review articles report that people experience a significant reduction in stress after doing yoga [31–34]. Based on the review Sharma suggests that "yoga appears to be a promising modality for stress management" ([34], p. 59). According to Riley and Park [33] both experimental and clinical research refers to yoga as a stress reliever. The latter authors suggest—based on their review of research on yoga and stress, that the psychological mechanisms that may relieve stress when doing yoga include: a more positive attitude toward stress, self-awareness, improved coping mechanisms, more appraisal of control, increased calmness, and also mindfulness, spirituality, and (self) compassion.

If one is to reduce stress among young people through yoga, it is important to understand the causes of stress and how yoga might help to reduce stress [35, 36]. Batista and Dantas [37] found yoga to be one of the most powerful agents for controlling stress. In their recent review article, similarly, a review study of the benefits of yoga for children and young people concluded that practicing yoga improved their ability to cope with stress and reduced their experience of stress and anxiety [38]. In another study of young people, "Students had particularly positive opinions regarding the beneficial effects of yoga on stress, sleep, and relaxation" ([39], p. 1). Another study on yoga in school [40] reported the following psychological benefits for students: "many cited stress reduction; many used yoga to manage negative emotions; and some propagated more optimism" (p. 171). As we mentioned earlier, stress is also about perception, Frank et al. [41] suggested that yoga (sports) reduced the perception of stress and accompanying mental health symptoms, such as anxiety and depression.

Wang and Szabo [42] found that many types of yoga had positive effects on stress reduction, at least in healthy adult populations. However, they recommended that one needs to find out about the long-term impact of stress, and also understand the underlying psychological mechanisms causing stress. The latter point is emphasized by Park et al. [36] who suggest that it seems established that yoga reduces stress, but there is a need to understand better the underlying mechanisms. What is the reason for this improvement in the ability to cope with stress and also to feel less stressed? Based on a meta-analysis of 81 articles on how yoga works, Ross and Thomas [43] find that yoga has a positive effect on physical and mental health by downregulating the so-called hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the sympathetic nervous system. Yoga's impact on better regulation of the sympathetic nervous system and the HPA system is also confirmed by Pascoe and Bauer [30] in their article with a systematic review of the research on the effects of yoga on stress and mood. They also find that yoga contributes to less depressive and anxiety-related symptoms. The yogic contribution to reducing sympathetic activity, which means less experience of stress and more experience of calmness in body and mind.

In a recent review article on the effects of yoga on young people, Miller and the coauthors [44] conclude that yoga is a promising intervention in relation to children and young people. One of the reasons is that especially breathing exercises (pranayama) and focus on breathing when doing physical yoga exercises (asanas) have an impact on the autonomic nervous system, by reducing sympathetic activation. Young people will therefore feel more relaxed as they are in more para-sympathetic (or rest and digest mode). Thus, yoga can also help to increase attention and the ability to regulate cognitive (thinking), emotional (emotional), and somatic (bodily) impulses and experiences. Practicing yoga can also increase young people's contact with their own body, mind, emotions (feelings), and reaction patterns (see [45]). Based on this study of how yoga can contribute to teenagers' and young adults' mental health and wellbeing, Hagen et al. find that practicing yoga can increase self-awareness, the ability to self-regulate, and the ability to cope with stress.

#### **4. Purpose of study**

The purpose of the study was to examine how practicing yoga was experienced by young people. The title was "Yoga to promote young people's mental health and well-being?" Originally, we intended to focus on teenagers, but due to recruitment problems, we broadened the sample to adolescents and young adults. We formulated the research question: "How can yoga impact coping with stress and increase psychological well-being in everyday life for adolescents and young adult?"4 The approach was individual semi-structured interviews, resulting in data that were analyzed through thematic analysis [46, 47].

#### **5. Research design and methodology**

In line with the purpose of this study, a qualitative research design was employed. Qualitative research is idiographic (as opposed to nomothetic), as it samples and explores specific instances in detail. Thus, qualitative research focuses on exploring what *can specifically* be the case, and not necessarily what *is generally* the case. The

4 The study was performed in 2015, as a "research practice" for senior bachelor students.

*How Can Social Expectations and Related Stress among Adolescents and Young Adults Be Better… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113961*

aim is to produce knowledge allowing for analytical generalization, which "involves a reasoned judgment about the extent to which the findings of one study can be used as a guide to what might occur in another situation" ([48], p. 297).

#### **5.1 Recruitment procedure and sample characteristics**

The interviewees were recruited by a "snow-ball method" and were approached by researchers based on their participation in yoga courses at two yoga centers. There were 14 interview participants, adolescents and young adults in the age range of 12 to 29 years. There were four young men and 10 women. These individuals had varied amounts of yoga experience, ranging from learning yoga and practicing it for at least 5 weeks to practicing yoga for several years. Mainly, their yoga practice consisted of hatha yoga—asanas with a focus on breathing—and some guided meditations.

Data was collected through qualitative semi-structured phenomenological lifeworld interviews [47, 49]. The purpose of this type of interview is to gather descriptions of the lifeworld of the interviewee, with the intent of interpreting the meaning of the described phenomena. An advantage of this style of interviewing is its flexibility in the order and formulation of the questions posed, so that one can follow-up on interesting themes that emerge in the interview situation (probing). The interviews were performed based on an interview guide, consisting of open questions, based on insights from yoga research, inspired by yoga practice performed by the project's lead researcher and supplemented by questions from the other members of the research team based on their research interests. In order to secure a report with the interviewee, we informed the participants of our aims with the interview (**Table 1**).

#### **Table 1.**

*Overview of participants.*

#### **6. Data collection**

Data was collected by means of semi-structured phenomenological life-word interviews [47, 49] in the spring of 2015. The purpose of this type of interview was to gather descriptions of the lifeworld of the interviewee—"the world as it is encountered in everyday life and given in direct and immediate experience, independent of and prior to explanations" ([48], p. 32)—with the intent of interpreting the meaning of the described phenomena.

The interviews were conducted with the aid of an interview guide, consisting of open questions. The guide was for the most part only loosely adhered to, primarily serving the purpose of a checklist to ensure that the intended and desired overarching issues were explored during the course of the interview. The questions of the interview guide were derived from the following set of research questions: (1) Why do the participants seek out yoga? (2) How do the participants experience the yoga practice? (3) What effects do the participants experience that yoga provides? (4) How do the participants view yoga in an overarching social and cultural context? In order to secure a report with the interviewee, a script informing the participants of the aims of the research as well as their rights (e.g., their ownership over the information they provide) regarding the interview was recited.

The interview guide was adhered to more strictly for those participants who had only a limited amount of experience with yoga. For the participants who had more experience the interview guide was more loosely adhered to in order to cover the general research questions. For experienced participants, we opened up with the question "what is your history with yoga?" This question is in retrospect deemed as having proved highly useful. In the interview situation, it elicited rich descriptions where the interviewees were allowed to situate yoga within their own lifeworld and in their own words. This question provided a rich set of leads that were followed up on with further questions aiming at clarifying meanings and exploring connected topics. All of the interviews, with one exception, were conducted in Norwegian, the one exception was conducted in English. Most of the interviews were conducted with two researchers present, with the lead researcher being present in all but one of the interviews.

The interviews were conducted at times and places that were convenient for the interviewees. Parental consent was obtained for interviewing participants below 18 years of age. The interviews were transcribed primarily orthographically, which is considered appropriate when the analysis focuses on what is being said, rather than how it is being said. However, specific nonliteral meanings were attempted to preserve by the use of brackets noting non-textual irregularities that might have been intended to serve as linguistic devices serving communicative purposes (e.g., laughter, pronounced uses of intonation and/or dialect to express irony or self-distancing).

#### **7. Data analysis**

The collected data material was analyzed employing thematic analysis [46, 50, 51]. The purpose of thematic analysis in general is primarily to describe and summarize a set of qualitative data in rich detail. The purpose of the current analysis was to construct an understanding of how yoga practice relates to stress and well-being by detailed mapping and examination of a limited selection of meanings. As such, it constitutes a selective analysis focusing on generating themes centrally relevant to address the predefined research question. The interviews were analyzed making use

*How Can Social Expectations and Related Stress among Adolescents and Young Adults Be Better… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113961*

of the Nvivo 11 Pro software for Microsoft Windows. The data was analyzed by coding for the specific meaning yoga had for the interviewees.

Thematic analysis as described by Braun and Clarke [46] consists of six stages: (1) data familiarization, (2) initial generation of codes, (3) searching for themes based on initial codes, (4) reviewing of themes, (5) defining and naming of themes, and (6) the writing of the report. While this report is written in English, the analysis is performed on Norwegian interview transcriptions, except for one case where the interview was conducted and transcribed in English. While the overall meaning is conveyed, some of the nuances in meaning can be lost in the process of translating between the two languages. Themes were developed from the perspective of and employing sensitizing concepts like stress and well-being.

#### **8. Findings and discussion**

#### **8.1 Yoga as sanctuary from social and societal demands**

How yoga relates to perceived social and societal pressures is a highly significant theme running through the data material. Most of the participants describe how they perceive society and their social context in remarkably similar terms, characterizing society and their social contexts as being dominated by a pressure to perform and as promoting and fostering competition. Furthermore, yoga is described by many as either locally as in itself a sanctuary from these demands, or as an arena for temporarily disengaging from them. Two examples from our interviewees:

*"That I got a small, fixed time where I just had to relax and… not think about school." (Fiona, F14).*

*"It is more like; you can empty your head. (…) Especially during the last thing, then you are not thinking about anything." (Brage, M15).*

"The last thing" referred to here was the closing part of the yoga class where participants practiced Shava Asana, a relaxing pose where one is lying down on the back, with the aim to relax or release tension.

Yoga as a sanctuary can also be viewed more generally, as the practitioners' accounts demonstrate evidence of employing techniques they have learned from yoga in their real lives as they face these demands during their everyday activities. The theme selected and elaborated on is one of the most central and pertinent to the research questions, and as doing the most justice to representing yoga as perceived by the research participants. The theme is considered well suited to summarizing the findings, as one of the themes incorporating salient topics brought up by the participants, as well as regarding how the data material relates to mental health and wellbeing. The theme chosen for elaboration and presentation in this chapter is "Yoga as a Sanctuary from Social and Societal Demands." Related to this theme, yoga as a "safe haven" and as a stress relief are important elements. The theme also overlaps with another central theme in our study, "Yoga as a Self-Developing Activity."

When analyzing the data, one realizes that the themes constructed can perhaps never do full justice to what is available in the data. Still, one gets the main insight into the way yoga is perceived as a way to deal with the pressure often experienced by adolescents in Norwegian society:

*"Yeah… like not only with friends, but with everyone at school that you… feel like… yeah, is… you have to like be… in a certain way and dress in a certain way and such to be accepted, I feel. It is like very much pressure" (Grethe, F18).*

However, the reasons for continuing to do yoga is not necessarily the same as those they possessed initially when seeking it out. Yoga does show marked development and progression for some of the individuals in this sample*.* This is illustrated by describing yoga from start to finish, going through what initially brought these participants to try yoga, and how yoga has developed for some of these participants into an activity that allowed them to come in and stay in contact with themselves. In the words of one of our informants:

*"It's like a breathing room where I just… forget everything else. Where I can, like, just be me. […] That I…yeah, just forget everything that has happened before and…what is supposed to happen, that I can just relax and… get a break. Catch up with myself." (Grethe, F18).*

*"No, it is that you … you concentrate about only your body and how you feel so… do not think about other things and … just feel how I am right here and now and… yeah. Quite calm. No stress." (Grethe, F18).*

Other people reported seeking out yoga specifically as an activity for *relaxation and stress mastery.*

*Grethe, F18: "It was because I'm a very stressed person, or I experienced a lot of stress in my everyday life, at school especially. And I had heard that yoga could help against stress… or that you become more relaxed. That's really why I wanted to try it."*

*Adam M15: "It was because I thought it sounded very… relaxing, and as a way of removing stress during the day and stuff. Like, if there has been a long school day and then, then, just a lot of things that I found very boring so that I could just... like, forget all of that."*

This theme relates to some of the reasons why the practitioners originally sought out or continued to practice yoga. One reason mentioned by several interviewees was that yoga was a source of physical activity where performance was not in focus.

*Karin, F25: "It appealed to me as … what should I say… a way of being physically active that was not … contingent on performance in a way."*

Several of the interviewees expressed that the focus on competition in sports was something that was experienced as stressful for them. For example, a mentioned reason for continuing to practice yoga was that it was a source of physical exercise where there is no focus on competition.

*Liv, F26: I do not really quite remember what made me continue but I remember that … yes both that original experience of that it wasn't about competition, but that I was allowed to move my body.*

Quite a few of the participants in this study recount experiences with other forms of physical exercise where the joy associated with these activities was ruined by the increasing pressure to perform and to compete with each other. The emerging focus

#### *How Can Social Expectations and Related Stress among Adolescents and Young Adults Be Better… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113961*

on performance and competition was described as having turned these individuals away from more mainstream forms of physical activity and toward yoga. For example, one of the participants who is now a yoga instructor recounts her being driven away from football preemptively because she was afraid of being labeled as "bad" and sorted into the "bad team."

*Liv, F26: "Because in football it's all about that [competition], they like split the teams into good and bad, and then I just had to quit. Because I was a bit like, that, I did not 't want to know if I was good or bad. That's something that you struggle with enough by yourself. You do not need anyone else telling you that you are not good enough to be with the good team in football. In yoga there was no focus on that."*

Another practitioner who has also become a yoga instructor reported that her source of physical activity, handball, was contaminated by an increasing focus on winning and performing where she was not allowed to participate when she wasn't among the better players on the team. Due to this, this source of physical exercise became increasingly dominated by and associated with negative experiences and emotions. Yoga offered a means of physical exercise not contingent on performance and not focused on competition where she was allowed to use her body.

*Karin, F25: "During the last few years of handball there was a lot of focus on that the teams should win and lalala. And .. I wasn't the best on the team to put it like that so I was sitting a lot on the bench and it came to be that to be active, it … moving and using the body and all that became sort of a negative thing because you did not really get to do it. And it was very obvious like, those are good and those are bad. And at yoga … I do not know why I had an impression that … I think maybe I had a friend that had been doing it or something like that they said like that there is no focus on anything but what you do yourself."*

A participant who had been practicing dance for many years also found herself driven away from it because it was increasingly being dominated by internal competition and pressure to perform. Yoga to the contrary was perceived by this individual as an arena where she is completely free from the scrutiny and the social evaluation of others, and as an arena where she could just focus on herself without being the focus of others. This feature of yoga practice was something that she greatly appreciated.

*Grethe, F18: "I was doing dance before, and I enjoyed that a lot for… ten years. But, in that too there was a lot of pressure. You should be… you should just become better and better and, there was pressure on being best and… if you were good enough you got to stand in the front when we had a show and… So it was very like… and I just could not take that any more. So then I just decided to try yoga instead, and here it's like, you do not think about how the others look while they are doing those exercises and… that others… I just do not feel that the others are watching me, and how I'm doing and… how good I am. Everyone just focus on themselves. And that is really nice."*

This aspect of yoga, that it is an activity in which there is little pressure to perform, is perceived by one young participant and being communicated clearly during the yoga practice itself. Nobody is forcing you to do anything during the yoga classes, and this is reported as clearly perceived and might contribute to the practice being completely autonomously engaged.

*Eva, F12: "I think it's a good thing. That… you can decide a bit for yourself. And if there is something that you do not feel like you can do or that is uncomfortable, in any way, that you have the opportunity to lay down and rather join when there are some things that you know that you can do and that you feel can be a bit easier."*

Yoga is an activity that itself is not contingent on pressure to perform and competition seems to make yoga itself a sanctuary from these features and demands from the reality that exists outside of the yoga classes themselves. When asked what is the most important about yoga, one of the participants described it as a haven from the rest of existence.

*Grethe, F18: "To me right now it is to… have a haven where, where I do not need to think about anything else. I can just focus on me and to… take a break. To not… I do not experience any pressure here. Here I am… just me."*

Yoga offers an arena where the participants get to temporarily disengage from these social and societal pressures, including feeling watched and evaluated by peers:

*Grethe, F18: "I like it here so much… I do not think that… here you do not think about how others do things and… I do not feel that they are thinking about how I am doing things either. I think that… that I do not have any friends that go here, I think it helps me, it's my place."*

These observations seem to demonstrate and point in the direction that yoga offers for these participants a sanctuary from perceived societal and social pressures, and that yoga is an arena where they get to temporarily disengage from them. This period of disengagement is experienced as rewarding as it alleviates negative emotions and promotes positive emotions. Disengaging also might facilitate functioning by allowing the participants to recharge their batteries in order to be able to meet these demands of society.

The fact that yoga is an arena where there is little focus on performance and competition by one participant described as yoga offering a contrast to the message that she perceives is being communicated by the rest of society.

*Karin, F25: "I feel it offers a … a kind of alternative way of seeing things. It offers … it is a contrast to … what I feel is a lot of society and then I do not know … the whole collective where you … from society you get all the time 'you are not good enough 'in commercials and media and so on to get better, where yoga in a way says 'no!', you are actually already good enough, you don 't need to do all of that."*

Practicing yoga can also be a way of disengaging from the stresses and demands associated with work and studies.

*Nora, F29: "At work I'm too much in my mind, in my brain, so I'm just like … it's not using my hands much, /Just have to think, think, think all the time […] And when I'm doing yoga I'm fully, after that I'm just like switching on my body, and this is what gives my mind some rest".*

*Nora, F29: "When/was doing my PhD, it was … in the end it was crazy times, and (sighing) it was Just a lot of deadlines and, like, you really, … you were just going crazy, and so on, and at least two hours per day, when I was going to the studio, it was like … as*  *How Can Social Expectations and Related Stress among Adolescents and Young Adults Be Better… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113961*

*soon I was closing the door of the studio, for at least two hours it was like nothing existed, it was just this … like … small room with other people. And for me it was like a light in the window because, there was too much pressure, too much stress, and at least these two hours was making me feel happy. So for me it was just like yea, a light of happiness".*

Another participant describes this break, this period of disengaging, as granting her energy.