Israeli Study: This Habit Dramatically Reduced Stress During the War

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Israeli Study: This Habit Dramatically Reduced Stress During the War

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A groundbreaking Israeli study conducted during the campaign against Iran found that nurses at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center who practiced yoga consistently throughout the fighting showed higher mental resilience and lower stress levels than other nurses. Prof. Meirav Ben Natan, director of the school of nursing at the hospital, said, “Yoga practice includes built-in psychological aspects, beyond physical activity.”

A groundbreaking Israeli study conducted at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center about a year ago, during the period of fighting against Iran, found that nurses at the hospital who had been practicing yoga for a long time demonstrated high mental resilience and coped better with stress and crisis situations.

The war against Iran placed nursing teams in a complex and ongoing reality, which included long working hours under heavy strain, dealing with staff shortages, and constant concern for family members under threat. The study is one of the first in Israel to examine in real time the link between yoga practice and mental resilience during such a challenging period.

The groundbreaking study was carried out by Prof. Meirav Ben Natan, director of the academic school of nursing at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center and a lecturer at Tel Aviv University, and Ms. Keren Horowitz, head of the human resources department at the medical center. Its findings were recently accepted for publication in the international journal Workplace Health & Safety.

Prof. Ben Natan explained that nursing teams experience fears and concerns similar to those of the country’s citizens as a whole, and that it was therefore critical to understand which factors help maintain mental resilience in difficult times. According to her, yoga practice includes built-in psychological aspects, beyond physical activity. The study included 105 male and female nurses from different hospitals in Israel, with 10 to 12 years of departmental seniority. The findings showed clearly that regular yoga practice produced higher levels of resilience and lower stress responses compared with those who did not practice at all.

The most interesting finding was that it was not simply participation in yoga classes that made the difference, but rather independent, ongoing practice over the years. According to Prof. Ben Natan, the sense of calm, meaning, and emotional balance that yoga provided were the most significant factors in strengthening mental resilience. Horowitz, head of the human resources department at the medical center, said that resilience is not built in a day, and yoga is not a magic solution. It is a habit that is embedded over time, and the more practice becomes an inseparable part of daily life, the greater its contribution to mental resilience. Among the nursing staff who combined yoga over the years, stress levels were the lowest.

Horowitz and Prof. Ben Natan emphasized that the resilience of the nursing team has implications far beyond the personal well-being of employees. According to them, a staff member who can cope better with stress and burnout is able to provide higher-quality care, make more measured decisions, and remain in the profession for a longer period. The study participants said that yoga had become, for them, a kind of “mental Iron Dome,” allowing them to continue caring for others even when the reality around them is turbulent. The two concluded that “investing in the resilience of staff is, in effect, an investment in the entire health system,” and that the study’s findings point to the need to develop organizational programs that will help employees adopt tools to strengthen mental resilience.

Iran, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, yoga, Israeli study, stress