Background: Stress experienced by Generation Z (Gen Z) undergraduate health professional students could pose a detrimental effect on their demanding professional lives. Health professional students are known to experience various stressors and it affects their health and academic performance. A gender difference is known to exist in the perception of stress experienced by the students. However, it is not clear if this is true in the case of present-day Gen Z tech-savvy students. Hence, the present study was done to assess the intensity of stress perceived by male and female Gen Z undergraduate health
professional students and to evaluate their perception on the role of yoga to overcome it. Materials and methods: Descriptive questionnaire-based study was conducted among the Gen Z undergraduate health professional students of a private health university in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka, India. One hundred health professional students were administered with  a pretested and validated academic stress scale questionnaire. Their stress levels and the responses to various stressors by male and female students were tabulated. Also, their perception on the practice of yoga for alleviating stress was documented. Results: Female health professional students are
significantly more stressed compared with their male counterparts. Academic stressors such as worrying, failure in formative assessment examination and unable to follow a study time table were significantly more in female students as compared to male students. Stress-related to non-academic stressors such as lack of concentration due to gadget use and lack of courage to speak in the class lecture were significantly more among female students. A significant number of students perceived that yoga is a useful interventional technique in alleviating stress and should be included in their course curriculum. Conclusion:
There is a female preponderance in the perception of certain academic and non-academic related stressors among Gen Z health professional students. The Gen Z students perceive yoga as a coping strategy to alleviate stress and that it should be incorporated in their course curriculum.
Keywords: Stress; Students; Technology; Yoga.