Information from a new study review has found that yoga may be helpful in relieving depression symptoms and other mental disorders. Numerous other studies had already found that yoga helped treat depression and anxiety, which could help take many patients off of the antidepressants like Paxil.
For this review of 16 previous studies, researchers analyzed the data in an effort to find out if yoga was helpful in treating depression. The results confirmed the previous findings, which makes an even bigger case for doctors to avoid prescribing antidepressants unless all other methods fail first. The analyzing caused researchers to conclude that yoga helps treat depression, anxiety, ADHD, schizophrenia and sleep disorders.
Yoga is considered to have a positive influence on the chemical messengers in the brain in a way that simulates antidepressants and psychotherapy, said study researcher Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy, a professor of psychiatry and medicine at Duke University Medical Center. This is something that is truly worth looking at in terms of treatment. However, some scientists are hoping that the yoga connection may help them to develop a yoga-type pill. This is supposed to provide the benefits of yoga on mental disorders, without all of the side effects of antidepressants like Paxil. Paxil causes some patients to suffer from violent and suicidal thoughts and behavior, and it causes some babies born to mothers who take the pills to be born with birth defects. Some of the birth defects include PPHN, spina bifida, neural tube defects and oral clefts. This is likely why scientists are hoping for a yoga pill, which many believe will even outsell antidepressants.
“If the promise of yoga on mental health was found in a drug, it would be the best-selling medication world-wide,” added Doraiswamy.
This idea sounds insane, since actual yoga is better for your health and offers zero side effects. When one thinks of the safety concerns that are posed in nearly every prescription medication on the planet, turning yoga magic into a pill sounds like just more of the same.
