Yoga and Pranayama Help Reduce Depression and Anxiety: Study

Akshay Naik 15 November 2019

Doctors have often prescribed meditation and other stress-reduction techniques as possible treatments for depression and anxiety. Though yoga has become increasingly popular in recent decades, it has received less attention in medical literature until now. A new study has found evidence that yoga and pranayama (breathing exercises) can reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Researchers from the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have published their findings in the Journal of Psychiatric Practice, that yoga can help curb depression and anxiety in both, the short term (with each session) as well as in the long term (over a period of three months). These findings suggest that yoga can be a helpful complementary treatment for clinical depression or major depressive disorder.

For the study, the researchers randomly divided a group of 30 clinically depressed patients into two groups. Both groups engaged in Iyengar yoga and coherent breathing; the only difference was in the number of instructional and home sessions in which each group participated. Over three months, the high-dose group (HDG) spent 123 hours in sessions while the low-dose group (LDG) spent 87 hours.

Results showed that, within a month, both groups’ sleep quality improved significantly. Tranquility, positivity, physical exhaustion and symptoms of anxiety and depression significantly improved in both groups, as measured by several validated clinical scales.

“Think of it this way, we give medications in different doses in order to enact their effects on the body to varying degrees. Here, we explored the same concept, but used yoga. We call that a dosing study. Past yoga and depression studies have not really delved deeply into this,” explained corresponding author Dr Chris Streeter, associate professor of psychiatry at BUSM.

“Providing evidence-based data is helpful in getting more individuals to try yoga as a strategy for improving their health and well-being. These data are crucial for accompanying investigations of underlying neurobiology that will help elucidate ‘how’ yoga works,” said study collaborator and co-author Dr Marisa M Silveri, neuroscientist at McLean Hospital and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Depression is treated with a variety of modalities, including counselling (especially through cognitive behavioural therapy) and medication. Other studies and research have shown that combining therapy and medication has greater success than either treatment alone. In the researchers’ opinion, even though the study is of a comparatively small sample of participants, the results still present a good case for prescribing yoga as a form of treatment for depression and anxiety.

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