How yoga helps overcome addiction, depression: two first-hand accounts
- James Gannaban’s hard-partying lifestyle fuelled by booze and crystal meth saw him have a near-fatal overdose that resulted in a spell in jail
- April Tsai suffered severe depression after her mother’s death from ovarian cancer and her crushing grief led to a tearful collapse at work
Yoga is known for helping soothe the mind, combat stress and improve cognitive functions such as concentration. But it can also go further: growing evidence shows it can complement treatment for psychological conditions and can ameliorate symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Some patients struggle to complete standard treatments for these conditions due to difficulties with impulse control and managing intense emotions.
Sixty-four women diagnosed with treatment-resistant PTSD took part in a study that saw them receive alternate treatment: either a 10-week yoga programme or 10 weeks of supportive women’s health education.
While both groups showed reduced PTSD symptoms, the yoga group maintained those improvements for longer, and a little over half of that group (16 of 31 women) improved to such an extent that they no longer met the criteria for PTSD.
The research was conducted by Dutch doctor Bessel van der Kolk and published in 2014 in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. It supported yoga as a supplementary treatment for PTSD, saying it helps patients “tolerate physical and sensory experiences associated with fear and helplessness and to increase emotional awareness”.
The paper also noted that yoga improves body awareness – something that is necessary to manage emotions – saying that “learning to notice, tolerate, and manage somatic experience may substantially promote emotion regulation”.