Yoga and mental health: Is there a connection?

When we are under stress the body goes into survival mode. It produces stress hormones, which gear us to respond to perceived danger. This has come to be known as the "fight or flight" response. In that state, the heart rate increases, respiration becomes rapid and shallow, there is a rise in blood pressure, and the brain itself moves into a primitive "survival" mode, suppressing normal thought functions (evaluation, planning, deciding, encoding memory normally, etc.). The result of this is that we react rather than being able to evaluate and plan a response to the stressor. Under certain circumstances, the body may be in a constant state of "fight or flight," which is exhausting and can contribute to the development of physical stress-related disorders, such as cardiac problems, chronic high blood pressure, and increased risk of stroke. This state of physiological hyperarousal renders people unable to gauge and modulate their own internal states, and hence they habitually collapse in the face of threat or lash out in response to minor irritations. Consequently people may develop mental health problems as their experience of daily life becomes concentrated on hypervigilance to situations of perceived threat.

Psychologists and others have traditionally relied on 'talk' therapies to help people cope with the states described above, however there is a growing realisation that talking alone will not resolve problems such as stress, anxiety, depression and other difficulties. This is due to recent advances in neuroscience that have confirmed earlier observations by scientists such as Darwin that physical, bodily feelings form the substrate of the emotional states we create to deal with particular dilemmas. These physical feelings in turn, propel the human organism to take certain actions. As such the research has illustrated that our brains alone have limited capacity to squelch sensations, control emotional arousal and change fixed action patterns. In order for this to happen, there needs to be an integration of mind and body, or put in the words of Roger Perry, who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1981. "The brain is an organ of and for movement:

The brain is the organ that moves the muscles. It does many things, but all of them are secondary to making our bodies move".

As a result Western leaders in psychotherapeutic research have increasingly began to focus their attention on techniques that address people's awareness of their internal sensations and physical actions, and consequently therapists are focussing more on the mind-body interaction. One cannot learn to take care of themselves without being in touch with the demands and requirements of one's physical self. Yoga helps towards increasing awareness of bodily sensations, as well as aiding people to relax. Indeed research shows that relaxing the body will relax the mind, and vice versa. Yoga and breathing exercises are a very good way to control anxiety and stress, as the unique combination of gentle physical movements, breathing practices, relaxation and meditation are designed to harmonize the workings of the nervous system and to relax the physical body.

In our practice we regularly encourage patients to use forms of relaxation as part of their daily routine as much as possible. This is so that individuals can start to feel a sense of control over the stresses and emotional chaos they often experience on a regular basis. Indeed relaxation tends to form part of the overall treatment plan and as such yoga is a perfect, if not necessary, complement to any form of psychological or psychotherapeutic therapy.

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