The Effect of the Yoga Participating Senior Citizens’ Exercise Flow on the EEG Following the Color Lighting Environment

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of yoga exercise within the color lighting environment on the senior citizens’ exercise flow and the electroencephalogram (EEG). In this study, a yoga exercise program was conducted once a week for 19 senior citizens living in Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, who voluntarily agreed to participate in the study. As for the experimental design of the study, utilizing a within-subject design, it was conducted by using a randomized crossover trial based on the 2 types of experiments such as by treating them with the color lighting environment and treating them with the white lighting environment for the lighting environment for the yoga participants. A one week interval was placed so as not to influence the measurement results during the measurement. As for the EEG test, measurement was taken by attaching 2 channels to the frontal lobe on the right and left, and as for the exercise flow, the exercise flow measurement consisted of the 5 sub factors of Clear Goals, Sense of Control, Loss of Self-Consciousness, Transformation of Time, and Autotelic Experience were used. The EEG test was conducted before and after the yoga exercise, and the exercise flow questionnaire was required to be prepared after the yoga exercise. The results of this study have demonstrated significant changes in the Theta wave, Alpha wave, and the Gamma wave following the exercise flow in the color lighting environment. To the contrary, the Low-Beta waves, Middle-Beta waves, and the High-Beta waves demonstrated no significant changes. Hence, it can be concluded that the exercise flow following the color lighting environment of the yoga participating senior citizens increases the Alpha waves and the Theta waves, while reducing the Gamma waves. Such results of this study are significant in that they present the basic data on the physiological responses of the yoga studies for which color lighting is applied in Korea in the future.