The Benefits of Yoga for Mental Health
By Andrea Lahana
Yoga philosophy and practice were first described by Patanjali in the classic text, Yoga Sutras, which is widely acknowledged as the respected text on yoga. Today, many people identify yoga only with asana, the physical practice of yoga, but asana is just one of the many tools used for healing the individual. In fact, only three of the 196 sutras mention asana and the remainder of the text discusses the other components of yoga including conscious breathing, meditation, lifestyle and diet changes, visualization, and the use of sound, among many others. In Yoga Sutras, Patanjali outlines an eightfold path to awareness and enlightenment called ashtanga, which literally means “eight limbs.”
The eight limbs are comprised of ethical principles for living a meaningful and purposeful life. Thus, serving as a prescription for moral and ethical conduct and self-discipline, they direct attention towards one's health while acknowledging the spiritual aspects of one's nature. Any of the eight limbs may be used separately, but within yogic philosophy, the physical postures and breathing exercises prepare the mind and body for meditation and spiritual development. Based on Patanjali's eight limbs, many different yogic disciplines have been developed. In the Western world, the most common aspects of yoga practiced are the physical postures, breathing practices, and meditative techniques.
One of the main goals of yoga is to achieve tranquility of the mind and create a sense of well-being, feelings of relaxation, improved self-confidence, improved efficiency, increased attentiveness, lowered irritability, and an optimistic outlook on life. The practice of yoga generates balanced energy which is vital to the function of the immune system. Yoga leads to an inhibition of the posterior or sympathetic area of the hypothalamus. This inhibition optimizes the body's sympathetic responses to stressful stimuli and restores autonomic regulatory reflex mechanisms associated with stress. Yogic practices inhibit the areas responsible for fear, aggressiveness, and rage, and stimulate the rewarding pleasure centers in the brain and other areas leading to a state of bliss and pleasure. This inhibition results in lower anxiety, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and cardiac output in students practicing yoga and meditation.
Consistent yoga practice improves depression and can lead to significant increases in serotonin levels coupled with decreases in the levels of an enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters and cortisol, the stress hormone. A number of studies demonstrate the potential beneficial effects of yoga interventions on depression, stress, and anxiety.
Yoga should be considered as a complementary therapy or alternative method for medical or mental therapies in the treatment of stress, anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders as it has been shown to create a greater sense of well-being, increase feelings of relaxation, improve self-confidence and body image, improve efficiency, support better interpersonal relationships, increase attentiveness, lower irritability, and encourage an optimistic outlook on life.
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References
Woodyard, C. (2011). Exploring the therapeutic effects of yoga and its ability to increase quality of life. International Journal of Yoga, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.4103/0973-6131.85485