Summary: Several studies have found that yoga may decrease symptoms of depression by influencing the production of stress hormones in the body.
Chronic pain is a persistent problem that affects millions of people and has a range of possible causes, from injuries to arthritis. There is a growing body of research demonstrating that practicing yoga could help reduce many types of chronic pain.
In one study, 42 individuals with carpal tunnel syndrome either received a wrist splint or did yoga for eight weeks. At the end of the study, yoga was found to be more effective in reducing pain and improving grip strength than wrist splinting Another study in showed that yoga could help decrease pain and improve physical function in participants with osteoarthritis of the knees Although more research is needed, incorporating yoga into your daily routine may be beneficial for those who suffer from chronic pain.
Summary: Yoga may help reduce chronic pain in conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome and osteoarthritis. Poor sleep quality has been associated with obesity, high blood pressure and depression, among other disorders 25 , 26 , Studies show that incorporating yoga into your routine could help promote better sleep. In a study, 69 elderly patients were assigned to either practice yoga, take an herbal preparation or be part of the control group.
The yoga group fell asleep faster, slept longer and felt more well-rested in the morning than the other groups Another study looked at the effects of yoga on sleep in patients with lymphoma. They found that it decreased sleep disturbances, improved sleep quality and duration and reduced the need for sleep medications Though the way it works is not clear, yoga has been shown to increase the secretion of melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep and wakefulness Yoga also has a significant effect on anxiety, depression, chronic pain and stress — all common contributors to sleep problems.
Summary: Yoga may help enhance sleep quality because of its effects on melatonin and its impact on several common contributors to sleep problems. There is considerable research that backs this benefit, demonstrating that it can optimize performance through the use of specific poses that target flexibility and balance.
A recent study looked at the impact of 10 weeks of yoga on 26 male college athletes. Doing yoga significantly increased several measures of flexibility and balance, compared to the control group Another study assigned 66 elderly participants to either practice yoga or calisthenics, a type of body weight exercise. After one year, total flexibility of the yoga group increased by nearly four times that of the calisthenics group A study also found that practicing yoga could help improve balance and mobility in older adults Practicing just 15—30 minutes of yoga each day could make a big difference for those looking to enhance performance by increasing flexibility and balance.
Summary: Research shows that practicing yoga can help improve balance and increase flexibility. Pranayama, or yogic breathing, is a practice in yoga that focuses on controlling the breath through breathing exercises and techniques. Most types of yoga incorporate these breathing exercises, and several studies have found that practicing yoga could help improve breathing.
In one study, college students took a week class where they were taught various yoga poses and breathing exercises. At the end of the study, they had a significant increase in vital capacity Vital capacity is a measure of the maximum amount of air that can be expelled from the lungs. It is especially important for those with lung disease, heart problems and asthma. Another study in found that practicing yogic breathing improved symptoms and lung function in patients with mild-to-moderate asthma Improving breathing can help build endurance, optimize performance and keep your lungs and heart healthy.
Summary: Yoga incorporates many breathing exercises, which could help improve breathing and lung function. Migraines are severe recurring headaches that affect an estimated 1 out of 7 Americans each year However, increasing evidence shows that yoga could be a useful adjunct therapy to help reduce migraine frequency. A study divided 72 patients with migraines into either a yoga therapy or self-care group for three months. Practicing yoga led to reductions in headache intensity, frequency and pain compared to the self-care group Another study treated 60 patients with migraines using conventional care with or without yoga.
Doing yoga resulted in a greater decrease in headache frequency and intensity than conventional care alone Researchers suggest that doing yoga may help stimulate the vagus nerve, which has been shown to be effective in relieving migraines Summary: Studies show that yoga may stimulate the vagus nerve and reduce migraine intensity and frequency, alone or in combination with conventional care.
Mindful eating , also known as intuitive eating, is a concept that encourages being present in the moment while eating. This practice has been shown to promote healthy eating habits that help control blood sugar, increase weight loss and treat disordered eating behaviors 40 , 41 , Because yoga places a similar emphasis on mindfulness, some studies show that it could be used to encourage healthy eating behaviors.
One study incorporated yoga into an outpatient eating disorder treatment program with 54 patients, finding that yoga helped reduce both eating disorder symptoms and preoccupation with food Another small study looked at how yoga affected symptoms of binge eating disorder, a disorder characterized by compulsive overeating and a feeling of loss of control.
Yoga was found to cause a decrease in episodes of binge eating, an increase in physical activity and a small decrease in weight For those with and without disordered eating behaviors, practicing mindfulness through yoga can aid in the development of healthy eating habits.
Summary: Yoga encourages mindfulness, which may be used to help promote mindful eating and healthy eating habits. In addition to improving flexibility, yoga is a great addition to an exercise routine for its strength-building benefits. Oakley explained, "For many older adults, it can help to improve their holistic wellbeing, including cardiovascular health and blood pressure. Regular practice can also greatly aid in the recovery of injuries whilst helping to reduce stress, anxiety and depression.
Meanwhile, Pearce believes that one of the great things about yoga is that it can be taken up at any stage of life — including by young children. You'll see yoga on the curriculum at many primary and high schools nowadays. The prefrontal cortexes of young children haven't fully developed yet, which means they don't have as much 'functional fixedness' as adults i.
He told Live Science that practicing yoga regularly can strengthen the joint, improve blood flow and circulation of synovial fluid the lubrication around the joint , help with stiffness and improve coordination and stability. Oakley agreed, adding: "Many styles of yoga, such as Hatha, Restorative and Slow Flow, involve low-impact exercise, minimizing the amount of pressure it puts on the joints.
This helps to promote supple, flexible joints and works into the deep connective tissue and fascia throughout the body. In yoga classes make sure to use props such as blocks, blankets or bolsters to support your joints. Make sure not to push yourself too far and listen to your body. Our bodies are our best teachers when we listen to what they need. Specializing in health and fitness, she is also the former editor of the leading industry magazine, Workout.
Keep in mind, however, that other mind-body exercises — such as tai chi or meditation — can boost body awareness and reduce inflammation, too. That's the catch with a lot of yoga research: It still hasn't told us how much better or different yoga is for a number of health measures when compared with other forms of exercise. Finally, many of the most outlandish claims people make about yoga, like the idea that it can alleviate constipation or wring out toxins, either aren't backed by science or haven't been studied at all.
The first randomized trial or high-quality experiment on yoga was published in in The Lancet. It showed that yoga was more effective than relaxation for reducing high blood pressure. But that trial only involved 34 participants, and all of them already had high blood pressure, so it is difficult to know whether the effect of the yoga would bear out in a larger trial of healthy people.
Since then, the number of yoga studies has dramatically increased, but the field is plagued by some of the same problems of that early study. Many yoga studies still involve small numbers of participants. Many lack a control group. Many don't compare yoga to activities we'd be interested in comparing it to. Ideally, for instance, we'd want to know how yoga measures against another form of exercise or mind-body practice — not, as one study examined, comparing whether it's better for back pain than giving people a book on how to manage their back pain.
What studies do exist are often short term. There are no long-term studies on mortality or serious disease incidence. There are few long-term studies on the potential harms yoga can wreak on the body. E-cigarettes and health — here's what the evidence actually says.
Studying yoga is also tricky. Researchers generally believe blinded studies are the highest quality of research, because participants involved don't know what intervention such as a drug they are receiving and their biases and perceptions don't color the outcomes. But you can't blind people to the fact that they're doing yoga.
Then there's the biggest question at the center of yoga research: How do you define yoga? Yoga usually involves some combination of the following: postures and poses asanas , regulated breathing pranayama , and meditation and relaxation samyana. But many classes mix in other elements, from chanting to heating to music. There's also a lot of variation in teaching quality and style. Hatha and Iyengar yoga are mostly made up of stretches and restorative poses, while ashtanga and vinyasa tend to be more vigorous and athletic.
Yin yoga probably won't make you sweat: You mostly hold postures for long periods of time for very deep stretches. In Bikram, which consists of 26 postures repeated twice in a room that's heated at degrees, you can be sure you'll drench your yoga clothes in perspiration.
Lorenzo Cohen , chief of the integrative medicine section at MD Anderson Cancer Center, told me: "Many papers [on yoga] don't have enough of an in-depth description of what they mean by 'yoga. How did they choose different postures or breathing exercises? What's more, there are so many components in a yoga class, it's tough to know what might be having an affect on health: If people report feeling better after a class, was that due to the experience of being part of a larger group?
Was it the teacher's style? Was it the breathing exercises? The heat? These factors are difficult to isolate, and some of the ways yoga helps people might be hard for scientists to measure.
Still, the yoga researchers I spoke to said the quality and quantity of studies has been improving, so we may get better answers soon. There is also a move to study the biological outcomes of yoga — how classes affect things like hormone levels — which will lead us to a more objective picture of what yoga can do for the body.
This question first came up in , when the New York Times published a splashy article suggesting that yoga can wreck your body. The piece, adapted from the book The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards , suggested yoga caused widespread harm to its practitioners — from ruptured disks and stroke to brain injury. But that piece was largely based on cherry-picked anecdotes, exaggerating these horrible cases to suggest they were representative of the broader yoga experience when they simply aren't.
Cramer has studied published reports of injuries and other harms from yoga for several review and told me this: "We found yoga is as safe as any other activity. It's not more dangerous than any other form of exercise. In a review of case studies , Cramer identified 76 unique incidents of adverse events from yoga.
Most often, people got into trouble with the headstand pose, followed by shoulder stand, postures that required putting one or both feet behind the head, the lotus position, and forceful breathing. Pranayama-, hatha-, and Bikram-style yoga practices had the most adverse events associated with them. Based on these cases, Cramer and his co-author had this practical advice for how to stay safe in yoga: Beginners should avoid advanced postures such as headstands , and people with chronic health conditions such as glaucoma should consult their doctors before diving in.
As for long-term yoga harms, Cramer pointed to two studies on joint and cervical disc degeneration in people who have been doing yoga for a while. But the studies had contradictory results, "so long-term health consequences cannot be clearly derived from the available evidence," Cramer said. I asked MD Anderson's Cohen for his take. The short answer is: It depends on the type of yoga. Yoga classes that involve nothing more than lying around on piles of blankets and breathing aren't likely to build your muscles.
But more strenuous types of yoga like ashtanga can be surprisingly similar to other forms of vigorous exercise. It strongly depends on what you do when you do yoga.
For example, a few high-quality studies have shown that certain types of yoga can indeed make people stronger. One small, randomized trial in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research — which compared eight weeks of Bikram yoga with no intervention in 32 young, healthy, adults — found that the yoga classes improved people's deadlift strength. The Bikram classes didn't, however, improve the participants' aerobic capacity. Another before-and-after study, published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing , found that hatha yoga could improve aerobic fitness in older people.
0コメント