The Meaning Gap: Why Yoga Reduces Stress but Not Burnout, and What Might Be Missing
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) March 25, 2026 Vanille Simeon
Yoga effectively reduces stress and anxiety, but a recent health technology assessment found no significant effect on burnout severity. This article explains the paradox by arguing that modern Western yoga has lost the meaning-making mechanisms embedded in traditional practice. Drawing on the history of yoga's decontextualization, the 4E cognition framework, and clinical models of burnout as existential crisis, it identifies five lost meaning-making mechanisms. The awareness–identity–agency chain suggests somatic interventions produce self-awareness but not narrative coherence or purposeful action. Reintegrating structured resilience-building practices from Narrative Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Logotherapy, Expressive Writing, and Focusing into yoga-based programmes could address this gap.