New study: Yoga fights off depression!

Do yoga, be happy! This just in – yet another affirmation that a yoga practice is oh so beneficial! The story below from WebMD:

In a small study of healthy people with no psychiatric problems, yoga produced greater improvements in mood than walking, suggesting its beneficial effect is not just from physical activity.

“We think that one of the reasons yoga makes people feel better is because it increases levels of GABA, a [brain chemical] that’s reduced in depression and doesn’t work well in [people with] anxiety,” says study head Chris C. Streeter, MD, associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at Boston University School of Medicine.

Yoga Increases GABA Levels

The study involved 19 people who practiced Iyengar yoga, a type of Hatha yoga, and 15 people who walked at an average pace for one hour, three times a week, for 12 weeks.

Participants filled out standard mood questionnaires throughout the study. MRIimages of their brains were taken at the start of the study and at the end of the 12 weeks. Then, participants did one more hour of yoga or walking, depending on which intervention they’d been assigned to, followed by one more scan.

The people who practiced yoga reported greater improvements in mood and greater decreases in anxiety than the walking group.

Also, GABA levels showed a trend toward an increase in the yoga group from the second to third scan, but not in the walking group.

Full Article HERE

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