Table 2.

Focus Group Themes

Themes	Quotes [age, sex]
Benefits of Yoga
Physical benefits
Improved flexibility	“I do notice it’s easier for me to—because I have a dog, a cat, and a 15-year-old—so when his stuff hits the floor and I notice it’s so much easier to bend over and get it. Just little things like that. Yeah. I notice a difference.” [52years, Female]
Improved posture	“Before, you were limited by what you could do … now the posture’s good and everything else.” [55 years, Male]
Decrease in aches and pain	“I used to always have backaches trying to sit up straight and tall, and my back is so much better, so much stronger. I mean, I used to be all tense in here, gone.” [52 years, Female]
Equilibrium/balance	“I’ve been a diabetic for a long time, but as I aged and the diabetes progressed, that’s when I would stumble, but taking the Vitamin B12 along with the yoga—the yoga really has strengthened, so it does have something to do with your core—stumbling too, but I think between those two, it has really helped not to lose my balance so much.” [60 years, Female]
Emotional benefits
Increase in confidence	“I think this took away a lot of the discouragement that we had. It gave us more encouragement that, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna go back to the gym, too. I’m paying for it, I’m gonna meet you there’. [Chuckles] It helped a lot.” [55 years, Male]
Mindfulness	“Toward the end of the yoga sessions, one of the teachers brought up the fact that there’s a difference between reacting and responding and that, if you can, try to scale back on the reacting and do more responding. I noticed in my own life a few real stressful things came up after I heard that, and I reacted all right. It wasn’t that I did not react, but I think I scaled it back and went into responding rather than keeping into the reacting or revving up the reacting.” [63 years, Female]
Reduced stress	“Totally helped my stress level. Then leaving here, I felt like I did something good for the day. I learned from it. It was helping me. There actually are a couple of changes I’ve gone through that I can’t explain over the past 12 weeks.” [56 years, Male]
Relaxation/Calm effect	“I looked forward to each class. I did not miss any classes. I was very fortunate. I did not have any event come up that prevented my attending class. I was so glad to be able to come. And When I would leave class and drive home, I felt very calm.” [63 years, Female]
Effect on diet	“What I found was after—because I would come straight from work to here, do the yoga, then go home. I found myself watching what I was eating because I was, okay, I just went through an hour of ‘exercise’. I’m not gonna sit there and order, eat a pizza.” [51 years, Male]
Effect on sleep	“I always have a hard time going to sleep and my hours are different and when I come to yoga and I’d go home and I would get—definitely get a good night’s sleep on the yoga nights. It surprised me because I would not break a sweat with yoga and you would think that you—but because you’re stretching and doing all of that, I think it just kind of like makes your body feel good and I never got cramps anymore in my legs.” [60 years, Female]
Effect on diabetes	“It’s strong, and the breathing, you’re not as stressed out, ‘cause you know when your stress level rises, your cortisone... that rises, and high blood pressure, which is combined with it. It all plays a part in it. If you can get your body to relax and everything else relax—like I said, I came in here one time and I was hungry, headache, stressed out. I left here, I was not hungry. My headache was gone. I wasn’t stressed out. I had a good night. That would’ve never happened without my yoga.” [57 years, Female]
Barriers to Practice and Attendance
Medical condition	“I did miss two weeks plus a day or two here. I got sick in the middle of it. I got the flu.” [56 years, Male] “I couldn’t do child’s pose because I fell last year and damaged the nerve endings in right leg so I couldn’t do the child pose.” [60 years, Female]
Traffic	“Overall, I loved the class. What I liked least out of everything was [interstate] 95. At that time, really, it’s awful.” [70 years, Male]
Class timing	“Mine would be the timing, I found it difficult the timing.” [56 years, Female]
Personal commitments (work, family)	“Even for me to not be at home could be stressful for me because of this. My son’s on a good medication and hasn’t had a seizure now in a year and a half, but when you have that sort of problem with a child, it’s hard to separate. At least it has been for me. This has been huge for me to just be away for a couple—at dinnertime. It probably was the worst timing for me because they’re home from school and it’s dinnertime. I thought, “Oh that’s not gonna work,” but it’s worked. I’ve done it.” [56 years, Female]
Perception of Yoga versus Exercise	“I don’t even know what the yoga class entails, but I know when I went to the gym and I got on the treadmill, that was exercise. I really, really sweated it out and was breathing heavy. It felt exhausting. I didn’t do that here, I just felt relaxed in everything I did.” [57 years, Female]
Group Effect	“What I liked most about it was getting to meet all the people that were diabetic like myself that I could talk to and I knew had some of the same issues.” [59 years, Female]
Study Feasibility and Acceptability
Reasons for joining study	“before I came, I was like, ‘Damn. I’ve seen my doctor. I don’t even want to go see my doctor anymore.’ I was in a—not hopeless kind of way—but in a, ‘Something’s gonna give, because I’m kind of maxed out on meds. I don’t want to start shooting up all kinds of more things that I’m doing’.” [56 years, Male]
Feasibility of practicing the poses	“there were things that I could push myself to do. It was good. Some things I needed a lot of work on. Some things I may never do, but there were things that I found that I could do and I think that kept me going.” [51 years, Male]
Safety	“I just to want to hit on something that she—when you were mentioning when you were doing certain poses and how it hurt after... Well, I can feel that the next day, but in a good sense, because it kind of opened up some—it freed up some muscles that obviously I must have been tense.- but now I was opened up and I was a little bit more relaxed. It’s not that it was pain. I felt it, but that was—it was good that I felt it. As the weeks went on, I felt myself being more flexible, being able to bend down farther down and movements, and a lot of that.” [57 years, Female]
Program structure	“That actually gave me comfort that somebody was keeping tabs on me and giving me reminders on a weekly basis. Because I have a tendency to forget a lot of things even though they’re right in my calendar.” [56 years, Male] “I think that they taught the class at the level that needed to be taught. She gave you a couple of things that pushed you each week—like it was a little something that pushed you a little further but it definitely was at a great pace.” [60 years, Female]
Home Practice and Maintenance	“When I go to the gym, I go on the stretch bars, and I do stretches and moves of yoga. I don’t do it at home, ‘cause I go to the gym.” [52 years, Female] “I have no space in my house, not enough space, so I can’t do many. I try the backwards—the shoulder one, but my chairs are like studio-size chairs, so I can’t do it.” [59 years, Female] “I just love it and I do it at home. I go down in the basement. No one bothers me. They leave me alone and I hide. [laughter] No, I don’t hide. I just absolutely—I’ll do this for the rest of my life.” [70 years, Male]
Recommendations to Improve Yoga Program	“I mean, three months is not a long time, because I just think after that you can go back into an old—your old habits. I think if it’s a little bit longer, you’re more prone to do this again the following year, because you’ve been at it.” [57 years, Female] “If I could change anything, I would like—I mentioned it earlier, maybe a food aspect, too. Because you can do all the exercise in the world, if you’re not eating right, your sugar won’t” [54 years, Male]