How Yoga May Support Mental Health

Mental Health refers to a state of well-being, it includes our emotions, feelings of connection with others, our thoughts and feelings, and being able to manage life’s highs and lows. It affects how we think, feel, and act, and determines how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices.

Everyone has mental health and may experience challenges regarding their mental well-being at some point in their life. Stress related disorders such as depression and anxiety are leading sources of disability worldwide, and current treatment methods such as conventional antidepressant medications are not beneficial for all individuals. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, 1 in 5 people in Canada will personally experience a mental health issue in any given year. Major depression affects approximately 5.4% of the Canadian population, and anxiety disorders affect 4.6% of the population. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood. Having a mental health condition can make it a struggle to work, keep up with school, stick to a regular schedule, have healthy relationships, socialize, maintain hygiene and more.

There is evidence that yoga has mood-enhancing properties possibly related to its inhibitory effects on physiological stress and inflammation, which are frequently associated with affective disorders. A review of 15 studies, published in the journal Aging and Mental Health, looked at the effect of a variety of relaxation techniques on depression and anxiety in older adults. In addition to yoga, interventions included massage therapy, progressive muscle relaxation, stress management, and listening to music. While all the techniques provided some benefit, yoga and music were the most effective for both depression and anxiety. And yoga appeared to provide the longest-lasting effect.

Yoga is a way of life comprising mental, physical and spiritual attributes to achieve holism, meaningfulness, excellence and completeness in all walks of human functioning. As a practice, yoga is not just the process of assuming a variety of poses with the body, it also entails many psychotherapeutic practices and techniques which are based on philosophical principles of yoga. According to Indian Philosophy, Yogas is ‘Chitta Vritti Nirodhah’ - A technique to quiet the mind or the restraint of the modification of the mind-stuff is yoga (Patanjali, 1978/1999). The application of yoga as a therapeutic intervention, which began in the early twentieth century, takes advantage of the various psychophysiological benefits of the competent practices. The physical exercises (asanas) may increase patient’s physical flexibility, coordination, and strength, while breathing practices and meditation may calm and focus the mind to develop greater awareness and diminish anxiety, and thus result in higher quality of life. Yoga may also help to attune people to the environment, to enhance concentration and mental clarity, to reduce stress and anxiety, to encourage positive thoughts and self-acceptance.

Yoga has consistently yielded encouraging results in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder and has also been shown to be effective in improving mood, decreasing symptoms of depression and trait anxiety in young and old patients. Yoga has further been found to increase thalamic GABA (y Aminobutyric acid) levels (Streeter et al., 2007; Streeter et al., 2010), and as pharmacologic agents for anxiety (and mood disorders) act via increase of GABA levels, it is plausible that the increase in GABA after yoga may be part of its mode of action to improve anxiety. Pranayama, or breath control, often used in yoga practices, is also thought to recalibrate the sympathetic nervous system, through inducing a shift towards a dominance of the parasympathetic nervous system activity via vagal stimulation (Brown & Gerbarg, 2005a, 2005b).

Furthermore, there has been several studies and systemic reviews that demonstrate the mood enhancing effects of yoga as treatments for clinical depression and anxiety. Yoga practice is associated with a reduced number of major depressive episodes and lower risk of dysthymia, which is a milder but longer-term form of depression. Meta-analyses and systemic reviews indicate that yoga and meditative therapies are equally effective as conventional antidepressants in the treatment of depressive and anxious disorders. Some individuals may find a yoga practice more appealing than pharmacological therapies as it allows participants to be actively engaged in therapy, and as yoga can be utilized at periods of high anxiety/depression, which empowers the individual in self-management.

The mechanisms through which yoga plays a role in the treatment of different mental disorders is yet to be fully known and established, as more research in this field is needed. Though, the research we do have today on the effects of yoga for mental health is promising and it shows that yoga practices can have a place in the healthcare system as a treatment for many psychiatric conditions, at least as an adjunctive if not as a primary therapy.

References:

Fast facts about mental health and mental illness. Canadian Mental Health Association. (2021) https://cmha.ca/brochure/fast-facts-about-mental-illness/

Dobson KG, Vigod SN, Mustard C, Smith PM. (2020). Health Reports: Trends in the prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders among working-age canadian adults between 200 and 2016. Statistics Canada. DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.25318/82-003- x202001200002-eng

Yoga of better mental health. Havard Health Publishing: Harvard Medical School. (2021) https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/yoga-for-better-mental-health

Tiwari GK. (2016, October). Yoga and Mental Health: An Underexplored Relationship. The International Journal of Indian Psychology. Volume 4, Issue 1, No.76. DOI: 10.25215/0476.002

Ramanathan M, Bhavanani AB, Trakroo M. Effect of 12-week yoga therapy program on mental health status in elderly women inmates of hospice. International Journal of Yoga. 2017 Jan-Apr; 10(1): 24—28. doi: 10.4103/0973-6131.186156

Cramer, Holger, Lauche, Romy, Anheyer, Dennis, Pilkington, Karen, de Manincor, Michael, Dobos, Gustav and Ward, Lesley. (2018). Yoga for anxiety: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Depression and Anxiety, 35 (9). pp. 830-843. ISSN 1091-4269

Büssing A, Michalsen A, S. Khalsa SB, Telles S, J. Sherman K. (2012). Effects of yoga on mental and physical health: A short summary of reviews. Hindawi: Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. V 2012. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/165410

Michaela C. Pascoe, Isabelle E. Bauer. A systematic review of randomised control trials on the effects of yoga on stress measures and mood. Journal of Psychiatric Research. Volume 68, 2015, Pages 270-282, ISSN 0022-3956. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.jpsychires.2015.07.013.