Yoga Helps War Veterans Get a Handle on Their PTSD
Washington Post; Flora Liscia, 10/16/2014
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It鈥檚 no secret that yoga听. What is more, it can help soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to new research.
Some of the most damaging consequences of seeing combat can happen in the mind. Of the 2.3 million American veterans who returned from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,听听go on to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder at some point. A听published by the Department of Veterans Affairs says at least 22 American veterans take their lives every day.
The听听can include intrusive memories, heightened anxiety and personality changes. Individuals can also experience hyper-arousal, where they are easily startled, feel 鈥渏umpy鈥 and constantly on guard.听for PTSD generally involves prescriptions for听and听, with mixed results.
In a听听published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress, researchers say that yoga can be used to bring better mental balance.
Yoga has previously been shown as valuable in reducing the听, and听,听,听听and听, as well as helping听. The charity听听runs听听for serving soldiers and war veterans.
Agnieszka Golec de Zavala, senior lecturer in psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, said the benefits of yoga included moving people away from negative thoughts.
The beneficial effects are due to the increased ability to focus on breathing that, firstly, focuses a person on a present moment and breaks rumination on negative traumatic thoughts, and secondly, increases ability of 鈥榠ntraception鈥 鈥 observing and understanding internal states and the ability to control them, or understanding them as temporal and passing.
But the new study is the first of its kind to provide scientific support for the benefits of yoga鈥檚 breathing techniques for PTSD patients in a randomized and controlled (though small) long-term study which monitored effects of yoga over the course of the year.
The study focused on the effects of sudarshan kriya yoga, a practice of听which听.
Twenty-one male veterans who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan, diagnosed with PTSD, were included in the study: 11 undertook a seven-day program involving daily three-hour sessions of sudarshan kriya, including meditation, stretching and group discussion, while 10 others didn鈥檛 take part were used as a control group.
The soldiers鈥 PTSD symptoms were assessed one week before the beginning of the program and then a week, a month and a year after its completion. Seven of the 11 involved in the active group continued practicing yoga after completing the program.
The study found that the group who had done yoga demonstrated fewer or less intense PTSD symptoms in comparison. Those who took part in the yoga sessions showed lower anxiety and lower respiration rates. They performed better in tests measuring eye-blink and breathing frequency in response to stimuli such as noise bursts, which are used to measure hyper-arousal and how an well individuals are regulating emotions. The researchers also found that the sessions helped with intrusive memories: patients reported re-experiencing trauma during the exercises, but felt that the impact of the memories was reduced.
鈥淭he authors describe their results as 鈥榩romising鈥 and I think this is what they are,鈥 said Golec de Zavala, who is also a qualified yoga teacher. She emphasized, however, that like many other studies examining the benefits of yoga, this study is limited by the small study groups on which their results are based. 鈥淢ore studies are needed and such studies would be highly valuable regarding low costs of this form of treatment and the initial evidence suggesting its effectiveness,鈥 she added.
Richard Davidson, professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the authors of the study, said he hoped that that the study could be extended to more participants with wider demographic representation. If still promising, then doctors could prescribe yoga as treatment for patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder in the future.
A clinician could use a 鈥榯ool box鈥 of psychological assessments to determine the cognitive and emotional style of the patient, and thereby determine a treatment that would be most effective for that individual. Right now, a large fraction of individuals who are given any one type of therapy are not improving on that therapy. The only way we can improve that is if we determine which kinds of people will benefit most from different types of treatments.
And one of those tools could be yoga.
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