Yoga, translated as “union,” is a philosophical science that offers body, breath, and meditation techniques and practices that have demonstrated significant results in the treatment of various physical and psychiatric disorders.
Another age-old technique, mindfulness, similarly attracts attention in the scientific sphere. Mindfulness stems from the Buddhist culture and emphasizes nonjudgmental focused attention of the present moment and acceptance of internal experiences.
Evidence-based scientists have found mindfulness to aid in improvement in coping and self-compassion, reducing stress, anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms in individuals.
Most patients with severe mental illnesses (SMIs) such as schizophrenia, major depressive disorder (MDD), and bipolar disorder (BD) have found that current pharmacological agents do not aid in attaining complete remission. Additionally, minimal effects on cognitive deficits coupled with adverse side effects of current medications have led scientists to seek out alternative therapeutic modalities such as yoga and mindfulness to aid in the treatment of SMIs.
The current study reviewed the wider scientific literature for the role of yoga and mindfulness interventions in the treatment of SMIs. Sathyanarayanan and colleagues (2019) reviewed scientific literature from the past 10 years that focused on either yoga therapy (YT) or mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) that ranged from 40 to 90 min and 60 to 120 min per session in the YT and MBI groups, respectively.
“The current study concludes with emphasizing the importance of integrating yoga and mindfulness interventions as add-on therapy for major mental health disorders.”
Effects of YT and MBI on schizophrenia and other psychotic spectrum disorders
Both YT and MBI found positive functional outcomes for schizophrenic individuals including better social and occupational functioning, quality of life, achieving functional remission, flexibility of thinking, subjective well-being, improvements in state anxiety, reduction of paranoid beliefs hygiene, life skills, interpersonal activities, and communication. To note, clinicians may want to consider sleep-deprivation or stress derived psychosis and mania before suggesting yoga or yoga-trainings to certain patients (Lu and Pierre, 2007).
YT and MBI in bipolar disorder
The review also examined the effects of YT and MBI on BD. Of those included, YT and MBI were found to improve focusing ability, relaxation, distraction from negative thoughts, a sense of accomplishment, reduction in anxiety and depression, and reduction of negative effects such as agitation with rapid breathing. YT and MBI have also been found to induce a sense of stability in participants that is self-reported to help with managing mood changes and further relapse and facilitate reframing negative thoughts. On the other hand, one study found that heated energetic yoga facilitated patients from hypomanic to manic states and found an increase in depression-like symptoms with meditation, thus further research is required to fully understand how YT and MBI effect BD.
YT and MBI in major depressive disorder
Both YT and MBI have demonstrated significant improvement in depression. Interestingly, YT has also been found to improve anxiety, increase behavioral activation, and increase life satisfaction in depressed patients. Maintenance of positive effects produced require continued practice of mindfulness skills and depressive symptoms appear to be directly related to the baseline magnitude of depression.
Sathyanarayanan and colleagues emphasize that the studies included in this review, similar to the greater body of scientific literature, have several limitations. Some limitations include patients groups initially experiencing low levels of symptom severity before treatment, lack of waitlist control groups, varying frequencies and lengths of time in each session of yoga and mindfulness-based training and practice, and a lack of personalized instruction from a trained yoga therapist. These limitations can be addressed in future research studies.
The current study concludes with emphasizing the importance of integrating yoga and mindfulness interventions as add-on therapy for major mental health disorders. Further systematic studies are needed to study the beneficial effects and potential neurobiological mechanisms to fully understand the clinical application of yoga therapy and mindfulness-based interventions in the treatment of severe mental illness.
Emily is a certified yoga teacher with specializations in children, adolescent, prenatal, and postpartum yoga (500 RYT, RCYT, RPYT).
Do you remember the dread of presenting in front of a crowd, or does even the thought make you uneasy? For some, anxiety is a daily
“Self-compassion emerged as a crucial factor for mental toughness. Athletes who treated themselves with kindness and understanding were more confident, resilient, and capable of coping
“These results highlight that trauma-sensitive interventions could be combined with mindfulness and self-compassion interventions to address the unique presenting clinical problems of those who experienced
“The findings do support existing theories that link self-compassion to the ability to receive compassion from others, which is often fostered through secure attachment relationships.
This study investigates the impact of humane education on fostering empathy and compassion towards animals within the Indian adolescent population. It addresses the escalating concerns
“Fostering self-compassion and building strong support systems empowers educators and counselors to guide students through mental distress, enhancing their well-being and resilience.” This study investigated
“Even if they felt excluded, those who had greater levels of self-compassion exhibited less depression because they tended to use positive coping mechanisms. “
The study also highlighted how emotional well-being and self-compassion act as mediators, bridging the gap between mental toughness and aggression to strengthen the protective impact of mental toughness against aggression.
The research highlights the importance to encourage self-compassion and forgiveness to improve older people’s mental health
Recent studies investigating the relationship between loneliness and poor sleep quality in teenagers discovered a significant correlation between higher loneliness and poorer sleep quality.
By providing an immersive, engrossing, and controlled visual and auditory experience in which participants can practice mindfulness techniques, Virtual Reality (VR) systems can create immersive, ecologically valid, first-person experiences that can even tap into physiological reactions that align with real-world experiences.
The researchers were interested in understanding if forgiveness acts as a mechanism by which mindfulness relates to relationship satisfaction. They speculated that being mindful would allow individuals to be aware of their own and their partners’ emotions in a non-judgmental and non-reactive way. The increased awareness would make people more forgiving of partner transgressions, thereby enhancing relationship satisfaction.
Emerging studies are highlighting the effectiveness of mindfulness, gratitude and hopefulness as positive psychological tools in helping people cope with anxiety and stress. These practices have also been considered beneficial in enhancing psychological health and well-being.
Despite growing knowledge that mindfulness meditation can enhance emotional wellbeing, very little is known about how it all works. How exactly does the act of meditation help us deal with the emotional rollercoaster of everyday life? Is mindfulness training actually “transferrable” to real world situations? What’s going on in the brain? Can we even measure it?
How does self-compassion protect depressed adolescents? Quieting the self may be the key.
A study led by Alexandra Martelli investigated whether more mindful individuals (based on self-report measure scores) would respond to social rejection with less distress and if certain neurological mechanisms in the brain’s prefrontal cortex can potentially explain the role of mindfulness in reduced social distress.
A research team from Valencia, Spain recently investigated the effects of a brief mindfulness-based intervention on both mood and biological markers on a sample of health professional students.
A new study by Kim and colleagues explored how compassion-based training can affect two self-regulatory styles and its relationship to neural, physiological, and behavioral responses.
Torre and colleagues recruited 70 HCWs from two hospitals in Rome, Italy for a 4-week course in yoga and mindfulness.
A team of researchers based in the perceived epicenter of the virus, Wuhan, China, recently tested whether a brief mindfulness intervention delivered through an app could be effective for reducing anxiety and protecting nightly sleep during the unfolding pandemic.
Mindfulness practices can enhance a therapist’s ability to intentionally and flexibly regulate attention as well as emotional reactivity which has been demonstrated to influence burnout.
A new study investigated whether a brief mindfulness training designed to reduce physician burnout could be delivered through a smartphone app.
The amount of research involving mindfulness interventions has grown exponentially; however, only in the last decade has mindfulness research involving adolescents rapidly increased.
Mindfulness and self-compassion are theorized to disrupt the maladaptive repetition of negative thoughts and emotions for patients with chronic or mental illnesses, who are particularly susceptible to psychosocial distress.
There is promising evidence that 70% of smokers would like to quit but less than 5% of unassisted attempts at quitting are actually successful.
In a recent pilot study by Suzette Glasner, Ph.D. and her team at the Integrated Substance Abuse Programs at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, they evaluated the effects of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) on reducing relapse susceptibility among stimulant-dependent adults receiving a contingency management (CM) intervention.
A major implication of the study suggests the distal effects of intensive retreat practice on respiration rates, a benefit not necessarily conferred by a brief, but full-day meditation session.
Researchers are exploring mindfulness-based interventions as a long-term treatment options to address the multitude of symptoms after cancer has been treated.
While the scientific study of mindfulness has exponentially increased over the past few decades, only recently has the scientific community focused on the effects of meditation training on biological aging.
Tell us about your idea. Nearly any subject related to the science of mindfulness is fair game.