Yoga and Anxiety

Anxiety is a common health problem that affects about 40 million Americans each year. Almost 5 million Americans suffer from chronic anxiety disorders. Anxiety disorders are characterized by excessive worrying and tension in response to everyday problems that should not provoke these reactions. Chronically anxious people obsess about their health, finances, work and personal relationships, even when there are no real problems. Chronic anxiety is a devastating health problem with detrimental health effects.

Anxiety can result in noticeable physical symptoms including being startled easily, difficulty concentrating, insomnia, trembling, shortness of breath and hot flashes. Anxiety is twice as common in women and occurs frequently between childhood and middle age. Although sometimes anxiety is situational, like when speaking in front of a crowd or interviewing for an important job, chronic, everyday anxiety is a health problem that demands immediate treatment.

Common treatments for anxiety include medication and cognitive-behavioral therapy. However, each of these therapies has distinct disadvantages. Anxiety medications are effective in some, but not all. Side effects can include drowsiness, loss of coordination, depression, blurred vision, sexual dysfunction � the list goes son. Cognitive-behavioral therapy has shown limited effectiveness and is expensive. Until now, there has been no effective, safe and affordable treatment option for people that suffer from anxiety.

Recent reports have proven what many have suspected for years; that yoga reduces anxiety, has no side effects and costs little or nothing because no special equipment is needed. Yoga emphasizes meditation, breath control and postures with stretching and balance exercises. It is the relaxation component of yoga that has such dramatic effects on anxiety. Furthermore, yoga lowers stress and anxiety more than traditional exercise does and yoga has a lower drop out rate than traditional fitness exercises.

Yoga produces these benefits by causing the release of a chemical in the brain called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA for short) during and after practicing yoga (Streeter 2007). GABA is an amino acid that helps with sleep and relaxation and blunts the activity of the sympathetic nervous system when it is keeping the constant fight or flight response in those with chronic anxiety at bay. People with low GABA levels tend to be excitable and suffer from anxiety syndromes more often than people with normal GABA levels. Yoga raises these levels by over 25%, a substantial increase with measurable clinical benefits. Better yet, the style of yoga that is practiced does not affect the GABA response. All styles (ashtanga, bikram, hatha, kripalu, and vinyasa) caused similar GABA increases.

Aside from the chemical changes that yoga causes inside the body, the practical benefits of yoga on anxiety are also well documented. One study compared swimming, fencing, fitness training , and yoga. Only yoga caused reductions in anxiety (Berger 1992). Another unique study followed survivors of the 2004 tsunami in the Andaman Islands who regularly performed yoga to lower stress levels (Telles 2007). After only 1 week of performing daily yoga classes, their self-rated stress and anxiety levels were already substantially lower.

Yoga has a low injury rate and can even prevent injuries caused by other activities by strengthening the stabilizing muscles, or the muscles on the side of your body such as the abdominal obliques and the vastus lateralis on the outside of the thigh. These muscles stabilize your joints and when strong, can help prevent overuse injuries from other sports.

A healthy diet rich in whole food vitamins should accompany any yoga regime. A healthy diet should concentrate on antioxidant foods like fruits and vegetables, whole grains and nuts. The dependency on vitamin supplements should be kept to a minimum.

Finally, yoga is cheap, especially compared to drugs or psychotherapy. Yoga is offered in group settings or it can be practiced at home.

This array of benefits for those with anxiety makes yoga the ideal treatment.

Contributed by: Dr Linda Kennedy MS SLP ND

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