Does yoga really help with stress?

I started my journey with yoga a couple years back at the beginning of medical school because I was told it helps to relieve stress. I found this to be true in my own practice but I was curious if science proved yoga to be truly stress relieving and it actually does.
It turns out that yoga can dampen the stress response in your body, essentially serving as a form of natural anti-anxiety or antidepressant. It lowers your heart rate and blood pressure. Through the meditative practice you combine physical movements with breathing exercises to relax your body and slow your breathing.

A research study out of the University of Utah looked at how yoga impacts the stress response as it relates to pain. The participants included 12 yoga practitioners, 14 patients suffering with fibromyalgia (a disease worsened by stress and associated with pain hypersensitivity), and 16 healthy subjects. Each group was given painful stimuli in the form of varying amounts of thumbnail pressure. Results showed that the fibromyalgia group experienced pain at a lower threshold than the other groups. Brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The brain MRIs also showed the greatest increase in brain activity in the fibromyalgia group as compared with the others, while the yogis exhibited the lowest brain activity associated with pain, in essence having the highest threshold for pain.

The results of the study help underscore one of the many benefits of yoga. Not only is it good for your physical health with many variations available for people of all ages and experience levels, it also helps improve your mood and mental health. The mind and body connection is essential for healing and recovery; if one is suffering usually the other suffers as well. I have experienced stress relief with my own practice of yoga and what I love most about yoga is that there is no right way to do yoga, so everyone can practice at their own pace without judgment. However, as with starting any new exercise regimen, it is always important to check with your healthcare provider and assess your own limitations. Yoga has taught me to take things a bit slower and find peace in every day among my daily stresses as a medical student. Hope to see you on the mat. Namaste!

                                                                                                    Heba Yusuf   DUCOM 2019

 

Resource: Yoga for anxiety and depression. Harvard Mental Health Letter. Harvard Medical School. Updated May 9, 2018.

Baby Steps to Overcome Postpartum Depression

Recently, I worked on a project examining postpartum depression in developing countries, particularly in South Asia. We soon realized that before such a sensitive topic could be addressed, many cultural barriers had to be overcome, including the fact that there isn’t even a word for depression in many South Asian languages! However, for all of our Western advancements and openness in dialogue, mental health is still relatively a taboo here too.

Postpartum depression is characterized by symptoms such as depressed mood, weight changes, sleep disturbances, excessive anxiety, and possibly even negative feelings towards the baby. If ignored, mothers may progress to more severe depression and greater suicidal tendencies.

It’s hard to know exactly how many women in the United States suffer from postpartum depression—estimates range anywhere from 10-20%. The challenge is that there is currently no widely used blood test or other objective test for diagnosing postpartum depression. Physicians typically use tools like the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) to identify whether a mother’s self-reported symptoms are significant enough to be labeled as postpartum depression. But, sometimes, when women are told that the birth of a baby is supposed to be a joyous occasion, they don’t always feel comfortable sharing that something is amiss.

Concerted efforts are underway to change the national dialogue on postpartum depression with celebrities like Chrissy Teigen and Hayden Panettiere speaking out about their experiences. As [future] physicians, regardless of specialty, we too need to normalize such conversations. And a little technology doesn’t hurt either.

                                                   

                                                             The Glow Nurture app, named one 10 Best iPhone Apps, is a pregnancy and postpartum companion app that allows women to check-in with themselves and connect with a supportive community of other new moms. The app tracks the user’s daily emotions and provides additional insights based on how the user is feeling. By also noting the number of other users who feel the same way, it ensures that a mother doesn’t feel alone.

MGHPDS, an app developed by Massachusetts General Hospital, combines elements of EPDS with other symptoms specific to postpartum depression to help bring screening directly to women. If a user screens positive, she is presented with referral sources and additional guidance. The developers plan to couple the app with a digital treatment tool in a future version.

 

Of course, nothing beats human support and medications when needed. But first, we have to start talking about it.

 

                                                                                                           Aleesha Shaik   DUCOM 2019

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/postpartum-depression-facts/index.shtml

http://www.who.int/mental_health/maternal-child/maternal_mental_health/en/

https://www.glamour.com/story/chrissy-teigen-postpartum-depression

https://glowing.com/nurture

https://womensmentalhealth.org/research/app/

http://www.thefyi.org/postpartumdepression/