We are always on the lookout for studies into the effectiveness of yoga and mental health, so when this study from the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry about hot yoga arrived in our inbox this week, it peaked our attention.
We are especially excited when yoga studies end up in psychiatric journals as it means more awareness building within the profession. In this particular study a large collection of, esteemed psychiatrists set out to understand if a hot yoga session could be used to treat moderate-to-severe depression.
To our surprise (!) an 8-week randomised controlled trial (RCT) of 80 participants found that 1 heated yoga session per week was associated with significantly greater reduction in depression symptoms than the control group.
The lead author Maren Nyer assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School posed the question of whether the combination of yoga and heat might be a unique combination for some people. There was no active control (yoga was compared against a group of people on a waiting list, so it’s impossible to know) As a series of research reviews find yoga’s highest efficacy is in improving depression (of all health conditions researchers have looked at) we wonder if the benefit is just yoga or whether placing yoga and heat together is uniquely helpful, especially in cold climates. We are interested in your thoughts on this. Does hot yoga offer more benefit, would other styles offer more benefit, or is it just, as Heather Mason usually says…”It all depends on the person”
See the full research here.
Do you have experience working with yoga in mental health care settings? We’d love to hear from you.
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