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.