Yoga

Improve Heart Disease with Mindfulness

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“Think about it: Heart disease and diabetes, which account for more deaths in the U.S. and worldwide than everything else combined, are completely preventable by making comprehensive lifestyle changes. Without drugs or surgery.”- Dean Ornish

 

Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer, claiming more lives than all forms of cancer combined. “Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women. About 610,000 people die of heart disease in the United States every year–that’s 1 in every 4 deaths. Every year about 735,000 Americans have a heart attack.” – Centers for Disease Control.

 

A myriad of treatments has been developed for heart disease including a variety of surgical procedures and medications. In addition, lifestyle changes have proved to be effective including quitting smoking, weight reduction, improved diet, physical activity, and reducing stresses. Contemplative practices, such as tai chi and yoga, have also been shown to be helpful for heart health (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/cardiovascular/). In addition, mindfulness practices have also been shown to be helpful for producing the kinds of other lifestyle changes needed such as smoking cessation, weight reduction, and stress reduction.

 

One problem with the employment of mindfulness treatment programs to treat disease is that they require patients to meet frequently with professional therapists in either individual or group settings. This can be inconvenient, costly, and time consuming. So, it would be very helpful if mindfulness based techniques could be successfully delivered over the internet. In today’s Research News article “Web-Based Mindfulness Intervention in Heart Disease: A Randomized Controlled Trial”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1149633058393952/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4671576/

Younge and colleagues test whether a web-based mindfulness training program can be successfully used for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. They compared a randomly assigned group of patients with heart disease undergoing usual medical care plus a 12-week on-line mindfulness training to a group only receiving usual care. The mindfulness training program included different meditations, self-reflection, yoga, and practical assignments and suggestions for using mindfulness in day-to-day life. They found that the mindfulness intervention group had significantly improved exercise capacity, compared to usual treatment, as measured with a 6-minute walking test of cardiovascular function. The improvements included decreased heart rate and blood pressure.

 

The fact that mindfulness improved exercise capacity is important as it is well known that a well-designed exercise program is fundamental to the treatment of heart disease. This combined with the proven ability of mindfulness training to help with the other lifestyle changes that are helpful for heart disease suggest that mindfulness training should be included in a heart disease treatment program. The fact that the mindfulness training was delivered over the internet is very important. This markedly improves the convenience, affordability, and availability of this treatment to patients.

 

So, improve heart disease with mindfulness.

 

“If you knew you could change your lifestyle and diet and avoid heart disease and other things, you should do it.” – Laila Ali

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Relieve Prenatal Depression with Integrated Yoga

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Yoga Prenatal depression Gong2

“I thought I’d never be able to love her. I had dreams in which I imagined I’d be able to give her away, then would wake with a horrible sinking feeling that I couldn’t. We’d planned a third child, and I should have been happy. What kind of mother feels that way about her unborn baby? What was wrong with me?” – Emma

 

Many women experience depression including pregnant women. Depression is characterized by A low or sad mood, loss of interest in fun activities, changes in eating, sleep, and energy, problems in thinking, concentrating, and making decisions, feelings of worthlessness, shame, or guilt, and thoughts that life is not worth living. It is difficult to deal with under the best of conditions but in combinations with the stresses of pregnancy can turn what could be a joyous experience of creating a human life into a horrible torment.

 

Depression occurring after delivery of a baby is well known, documented and discussed. Less well known but equally likely is depression during pregnancy. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists suggest that between 14 and 23 percent of women suffer from some form of depression during pregnancy. Without treatment, prenatal depression can pose a serious threat to a mother-to-be, who may stop taking care of herself or, in extreme cases, become suicidal. This can cause a woman to want to terminate her pregnancy. There are no statistics on the matter but it has been speculated that prenatal depression can lead to abortion.

 

Prenatal depression is often not recognized or diagnosed. When it is, the typical treatment is antidepressant drugs. But these drugs are often ineffective and frequently have troublesome side effects and may not be safe during pregnancy. So, alternative treatments are needed. Yoga practice has been shown to help relieve depression during pregnancy (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/09/22/practice-yoga-to-relieve-anxiety-and-depression-during-pregnancy/). This is encouraging as yoga has many benefits including improvement of physical and mental health and if practiced properly is completely safe, even during pregnancy.

 

There are many types of yoga practice and little is known of what forms are effective and which are not. They can be roughly separated into those that are purely physical and those that are integrated.  Physical-exercise-based yoga include exercises, such as stretching and other yoga postures. Integrated yoga, on the other hand also includes meditation or deep relaxation. In today’s Research News article “Yoga for prenatal depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis.”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1147726498584608/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4323231/

Gong and colleagues review and summarize the literature on the effectiveness of physical-exercise-based yoga and integrated yoga on prenatal depression. Overall, yoga practice was found to be effective for prenatal depression. But, interestingly, they found that only with the integrated yoga practice was depression significantly reduced.

 

This is an important finding. Since integrated yoga is a combination of exercise-based yoga with meditation or deep relaxation and exercise-based yoga alone did not significantly reduce depression, these results suggest that the meditation or deep relaxation is critical for the anti-depressive effects. Mindfulness practices alone are known to be effective for depression (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/how-do-mindfulness-based-interventions-improve-mental-health/ and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/15/spiraling-up-with-mindfulness/). So, it is possible that the effectiveness of yoga for prenatal depression is due to its mindfulness components. But future work will be required to determine whether it is the mindfulness components alone or the combination of exercise with mindfulness is important for the anti-depressive effects.

 

Regardless, it is clear that integrated yoga is a safe and effective treatment for prenatal depression. So, relieve prenatal depression with integrated yoga.

 

“prenatal depression is hard to talk about or diagnose. Pregnancy symptoms can mimic depression signs, so it can be difficult to tell what’s really going on. Plus, everyone expects pregnant women to be blissfully happy, right? Just so overjoyed at the miracle of it all, too filled with excited anticipation to feel such humanly concerns as fear or discontentment.” – Linda Sharps

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Mindfully Improve Memory

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“Mindfulness registers experiences, but it does not compare them. It does not label them or categorize them. It just observes everything as if it was occurring for the first time. It is not analysis which is based on reflection and memory.” – Bhante Gunaratana

 

Humans have both an amazing capacity to remember and a tremendously limited capacity depending upon which phase of the memory process that is looked at. Our long-term store of information is virtually unlimited. We can recall in great detail events that occurred years ago or a few minutes ago. It not only includes events but things that were memorized by rote, music, places and their relationship to other places, faces, emotions, facts, definitions, etc. It’s really quite amazing. On the other hand, or very short-term memory is extremely limited. This is called our working memory and it can contain only about 5 to 9 pieces of information at a time. This fact of a limited working memory store shapes a great deal about how we think, summarize, and categorize our world.

 

Memory is not always accurate. We forget a great deal of information or have great difficulty retrieving it. We sometimes vividly recall things that really never happened to us, called false memories. Problems with memory are exacerbated by interference within memory where similar things tend to produce problems in our ability to recalling them. The problems with memory are well known in the legal system where the unreliability of eyewitness testimony is legendary. So, methods to improve memory and recall could be quite helpful, particularly to students who are required to recall information regularly.

 

Mindfulness has a mixed record in regards to its effects on memory. It has been shown to increase the likelihood of false memories and to impair memory for emotionally negative words but not positive words in adults (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/memory/). But mindfulness has also been shown to improve working memory capacity and Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores among college students (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23538911). So, mindfulness appears to be able to improve some forms of memory while impairing others. It is thus important to sort out what kinds of memories are affected by mindfulness, in what way, and with whom.

 

In today’s Research News article “A Randomized Controlled Trial Examining the Effect of Mindfulness Meditation on Working Memory Capacity in Adolescents.”

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Quach and colleagues investigated the effect of contemplative practices on working memory in 12 to 17 year-olds. They compared students receiving 4-weeks of the meditation component of a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program to students receiving 4-weeks of Hatha yoga training and to untreated students on a wait list. They found that over the 4 weeks the students receiving meditation training significantly improved their working memory capacity while neither the yoga training nor the wait list groups did.

 

Hence the results indicated that meditation training improved short-term memory in adolescents. This adds to the prior results that mindfulness improved working memory in college students and suggests that meditation practice may be an effective method to improve an important component of students’ memories, working memory. This should, in turn, improve cognitive abilities such as problem solving, mathematics, etc. and improve school performance in general. But, future research will be required to confirm this speculation.

 

Meditation training improves attentional ability and present moment awareness and reduces mind wandering. These effects of meditation may well account for the improved working memory. By simply being able to concentrate better on the material and stay on task more will be entered into memory and less lost. Also, meditation training has also been shown to increase the size of brain areas involved in memory. This structural change in the nervous system might also underlie the improved working memory. Regardless of the mechanism it appears clear that meditation practice can lead to improved working memory in high school and college students.

 

So, mindfully improve memory.

 

“Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.” — Tennessee Williams

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Mind-body Practices Promote Health and Well-being by Changing Gene Expression

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“We can’t any longer have the conventional understanding of genetics which everybody peddles because it is increasingly obvious that epigenetics – actually things which influence the genome’s function – are much more important than we realised.” – Robert Winston

 

There is an accumulating volume of research findings to demonstrate that Mind-body therapies have highly beneficial effects on the health and well-being of humans. These include meditation, yoga, tai chi, qigong, biofeedback, progressive muscle relaxation, guided imagery, hypnosis, and deep breathing exercises. Because of their proven benefits the application of these practices to relieving human suffering has skyrocketed.

 

It is clear that Mind-body therapies affect the physiology. In other words, the mind can alter the body. In turn, the genes can affect our minds. In fact, the genes have been shown to affect an individual’s inherent level of mindfulness (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/genetics/). These interactions are well documented. The mechanisms by which they occur, however, are not well understood. It has been shown that contemplative practices help create balance in the inflammatory response (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/inflammatory-response/) which is very beneficial for health. But, the mechanism through which contemplative practices affect the immune system is not known.

 

The genes dictate all of the chemical processes in our bodies including immune and inflammatory responses. So, it would seem reasonable to investigate whether alterations in gene expressions might be the intermediary between mind-body therapies and health. In today’s Research News article “Functional Genomics in the Study of Mind-Body Therapies”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1140382739318984/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4295747/

Niles and colleagues review the literature on the effects of mind-body therapies on the functional expression of the genes. Out of the vast number of genomic pathways that can be affected, they found one which appears to be altered by mind-body therapies in general. This was a reduction in activity (downregulation) of the expression of genes that elicit the inflammatory response. In other words mindfulness practices reduce inflammation by reducing the activity of the genes that produce it.

 

This finding is extremely important as an overactive inflammatory system underlies many chronic diseases. Inflammation is a normal response of the body to outside threats like stress, infection, injury, and toxic chemicals. It is designed to protect the body and ward off these threats. It works quite well for short-term infections and injuries and as such is an important defense mechanism for the body. But when inflammation is protracted and becomes chronic, it can itself become a threat to health. Chronic inflammation can produce autoimmune diseases such as colitis, Chron’s disease, arthritis, heart disease, increased cancer risk, lung disease, sleep disruption, gum disease, decreased bone health, psoriasis, and depression. Needless to say chronic inflammation can create major health problems. Indeed, the presence of chronic inflammation is associated with reduced longevity. So, it is important for health to control the inflammatory response, allowing it to do its job in fighting off infection but then reducing its activity when no external threat is apparent. Mind-body therapies appear to do just that by reducing the expression of the genes that produce inflammation.

 

Niles and colleagues also found that a number of mind-body therapies increase the activity of telomerase, an enzyme that protects the genes from deterioration, particularly during aging. Hence, mind-body therapies appear to have anti-aging properties by increasing the activity of genes the reduce age related deterioration (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/aging-healthily-yoga-and-cellular-aging/).

 

All of these results suggest that mind-body therapies promote health and well-being by altering gene expression. This is interesting and important. The next question is what are the mechanisms by which these practices affect gene expressions? It will be up to future research to investigate this link in the causal chain from mind-body therapies to the promotion of health and well-being.

 

So engage in mind-body practices, change gene expression and promote health and well-being.

 

“Our genes are quite dynamic in their expression and …. the calmness of our mind can actually have a potential influence on their expression.” – Richard Davidson

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

 

 

Calm the Police with Yoga

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“Yoga has a sly, clever way of short circuiting the mental patterns that cause anxiety.” – Baxter Bell

 

Policing is a very stressful occupation. Stress in police can result from role conflicts between serving the public, enforcing the law, and upholding ethical standards and personal responsibilities as spouse, parent, and friend. Stress also results from, threats to health and safety, boredom, responsibility for protecting the lives of others, continual exposure to people in pain or distress, the need to control emotions even when provoked, the presence of a gun, even during off-duty hours, and the fragmented nature of police work, with only rare opportunities to follow cases to conclusion or even to obtain feedback or follow-up information.

 

This stress can have serious consequences for the individual and in turn for society. Police officers have one of the highest suicide rates in the nation, possibly the highest. They have a high divorce rate, about second in the nation. They are problem drinkers about twice as often as the general population. This is a major problem as stress and the resultant complications can impact job performance, which sometimes involve life or death situations.

 

Given the difficulties with stress and the critical nature of their roles in society, it is imperative that methods be found to not just reduce the stressors of the job but also to assist the officers in stress management. Contemplative practices including yoga practice have been shown to be effective in the management of stress (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/stress/n). They’ve been shown to reduce both the physiological and the psychological responses to stress. Hence, contemplative practice may be an effective method to reduce stress in police.

 

In today’s Research News article “Evaluation of the benefits of a Kripalu yoga program for police academy trainees: a pilot study”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1139276302762961/?type=3&theater

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/256478725_Evaluation_of_the_benefits_of_a_kripalu_yoga_program_for_police_academy_trainees_a_pilot_study

Jeter and colleagues examined the effectiveness of yoga practice for reducing stress in police academy trainees. They administered six 75-minute classes during the 20-week police academy training and found that there was a significant reduction in perceived stress in the trainees. In addition, they found that the yoga training significantly reduced tension and fatigue.

 

Yoga practice has been shown previously to reduce not only perceived stress but also the hormonal and cardiovascular responses to stress. Unfortunately, these physiological indicators were not measured in the study by Jeter and colleagues. But, the reduction in the psychological perception of stress is normally linked to changes in the physiological response. So, it is likely that these were also present in the trainees.

 

The reduction in fatigue is very significant. Fatigue is a major problem with police. Rotating shift work, lack of sleep, financial pressures to take on extra work or second jobs induce fatigue which can, in turn, affect performance. It has been demonstrated that fatigue impairs judgment and eye-hand coordination, increases excessive use of force, severe mood swings, anxiety or depression, substance-abuse, back pain and frequent headaches, PTSD, gastrointestinal problems, and risk of serious health problems. So, the ability of yoga practice to reduce fatigue in the trainees is very important.

 

These results in trainees need to be reproduced in a more highly controlled trial and the effectiveness of yoga practice to reduce stress in police officers in the field needs to be established. But, these preliminary results certainly justify further research. The problem is too important to be left untreated and yoga practice definitely shows promise.

 

So, calm the police with yoga.

 

“Yoga, an ancient but perfect science, deals with the evolution of humanity. This evolution includes all aspects of one’s being, from bodily health to self realization. Yoga means union – the union of body with consciousness and consciousness with the soul. Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day to day life and endows skill in the performance of one’s actions.” – B.K.S. Iyenga

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Improve Physical Well-being with Bikram Yoga

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Yoga Bikram Hewett2

“My system works, as long as people let me do my job my way. It is not just the sequence, it is how you do it: the timing, the mirrors, the temperature, the carpet. But if people only do it 99% right, it is 100% wrong. When someone tries to mess with it, the people won’t get the yoga benefits.” – Bikram Choudhury

 

Yoga practice has been shown to improve physical well-being (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/contemplative-practice/yoga-contemplative-practice/). But, there are a large number of different types of yoga practice including Ansura, Ashtanga, Bikram, Hatha, Hot Yoga, Iyengar, Jivamukti, Kripalu, Kundalini, Prenatal, Restorative, Viniypga, Vinyasa, and yin. One problem with the research on yoga effects is that different researchers use different types of yoga. So, it is difficult to compare results. In addition, the studies do not establish the relative effectiveness of each type of yoga.

 

Bikram Yoga is somewhat unique in that it employs a set sequence of 26 poses (asanas) and two breathing exercises. It is practiced in a heated environment (105°F, 40.6°C, 40% humidity) and there is a unique programmed instructional dialogue. The hot environment is thought to soften the muscles making them more pliable and loosen the joints making them more flexible allowing the practitioner to go deeper into poses. The sweating that occurs is thought to help remove toxins and impurities.

 

In today’s Research News article “The Effects of Bikram Yoga on Health: Critical Review and Clinical Trial Recommendations”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1137653292925262/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4609431/

Hewett and colleagues review the published research on the effectiveness of Bikram Yoga on physical well-being. They report that in terms of physical fitness, Bikram Yoga increases lower body range of motion, balance, isometric dead-lift strength, isometric maximal voluntary contraction, total hip bone density, and balance compared to the control group. It appears to improve cardiovascular fitness, increasing carotid artery compliance and decreasing beta-stiffness, and HDL and total cholesterol. In overweight and obese practitioners Bikram Yoga improved a number of metabolic markers including blood lipids, insulin resistance, and glucose tolerance. Psychologically, this form of yoga appears to reduce perceived stress and increase mindfulness.

 

These are important findings suggesting that Bikram Yoga is effective in improving fitness, cardiovascular, health, and psychological well-being. The reviewed research studies were limited and did not investigate many other physical and mental parameters and did not investigate Bikram Yoga’s applicability to the treatment of diseases. Unfortunately, the research studies reviewed did not compare Bikram Yoga to other forms of yoga, so it is not known what if any of the reported benefits are specific to Bikram Yoga and which are in common with other practices. This review is an important first step in documenting the effects of Bikram Yoga which are shown to be widely beneficial. It is clear that much more research is warranted comparing the effects of the different forms of practice.

 

Regardless, the results are clear that you can improve well-being with Bikram Yoga.

 

“To sweat is to pray, to make an offering of your innermost self. Sweat is holy water, prayer beads, pearls of liquid that release your past. Sweat is an ancient and universal form of self healing, whether done in the gym, the sauna, or the sweat lodge … The more you sweat, the more you pray. The more you pray, the closer you come to ecstasy.”  – Gabrielle Roth
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are available at the Contemplative Studies Blog http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/

 

 

Improve Mental and Physical Well-being with Yoga

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Yoga cognition Nagendra2

“The breathing and meditative exercises aim at calming the mind and body and keeping distracting thoughts away while you focus on your body, posture or breath. Maybe these processes translate beyond yoga practice when you try to perform mental tasks or day-to-day activities.” – Neha Gothe

 

If we are lucky enough to navigate life’s dangers we are rewarded with the opportunity to experience aging! The aging process involves a progressive deterioration of the body including the brain. It actually begins in the late 20s and continues throughout the lifespan. It’s inevitable. We can’t stop it or reverse it. But, it is becoming more apparent that life-style changes can slow down and to some extent counteract the process and allow us to live longer and healthier lives. This is true for both physical and mental deterioration including degeneration and shrinkage of the nervous system. Aging healthily to a large extent involves strategies to slow down the deterioration.

 

Contemplative practices including yoga practice (See links below) have been shown to reduce the physical deterioration that occurs with aging (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/aging/). Yoga practice has many physical and mental benefits including protection of brain structures from degeneration with aging (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/age-healthily-protect-the-brain-with-yoga/). These structural changes have been demonstrated by neuroimaging techniques with yoga practitioners. They document change in the size and connectivity of brain structures that result from yoga practice.

 

Yoga is a mind-body practice that involves both physical and mental exercises. This is accompanied by changes in the activity of virtually every component of the body including general physiology and the peripheral and central nervous systems. So, another potential method to investigate yoga’s effects on the nervous system is to measure the electrical signals emanating from the nervous system.

 

In today’s Research News article “Cognitive Behavior Evaluation Based on Physiological Parameters among Young Healthy Subjects with Yoga as Intervention”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1136173913073200/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4339827/

Nagendra and colleagues trained naive adults in yoga practice for a period of five months for 1.5 hours per day and compared physiological measure to a no-treatment control group. They found that yoga practice produced an increase in parasympathetic (vegetative) and decrease in sympathetic (activation) activity in the peripheral nervous system including a decrease in heart rate and heart rate variability. This indicates a calming and relaxing effect of yoga on the physiology.

 

Nagendra and colleagues also found significant differences in EEG activity of the central nervous system. The changes were complex and varied. But they are indicators that yoga practice produces alterations of brain activity in ways that are indicative of improved vigilance, alertness, attention, concentration ,memory, visual information processing, sense of wellbeing, responsiveness, emotion process, cognition, and executive function and reduced stress and strain. In other words the changes in the brain activity indicated vast improvements in mental processing produced by yoga practice.

 

It should be noted that these are indirect measures and the researchers did not directly measure the psychological variables. So, although suggestive they are not conclusive. They are, however, similar to findings of yoga effects in other research with direct measures (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/contemplative-practice/yoga-contemplative-practice/). But, even with this caution, the results suggest that yoga practice has widespread beneficial effects on the mental and physical well-being of the individual.

 

So, practice yoga and improve mental and physical well-being.

 

“True yoga is not about the shape of your body, but the shape of your life. Yoga is not to be performed; yoga is to be lived. Yoga doesn’t care about what you have been; yoga cares about the person you are becoming. Yoga is designed for a vast and profound purpose, and for it to be truly called yoga, its essence must be embodied.” — Aadil Palkhivala

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

 

Yoga and aging links

Yoga reduces physical degeneration in the elderly http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/age-healthily-yoga/

Yoga reduces cellular aging http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/aging-healthily-yoga-and-cellular-aging/

Yoga practice improves the symptoms of arthritis in the elderly http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/14/age-healthily-yoga-for-arthritis/

 

 

Sleep Better Mindfully

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“I spend several days at a time without enough sleep. At first, normal activities become annoying. When you are too tired to eat, you really need some sleep. A few days later, things become strange. Loud noises become louder and more startling, familiar sounds become unfamiliar, and life reinvents itself as a surrealist dream.” – Henry Rollins

 

We require on average 8 hours of sleep a night. But that average number is deceptive as different individuals require different amounts of sleep. If you feel rested and alert you probably had enough sleep regardless of the number of hours. Sleep also varies with age. As we mature we need less sleep but as we get older we require more sleep. Indeed, over half of those over the age of 65 experience disturbed sleep.

 

Modern society has become more around-the-clock and more complex producing considerable pressure and stress on the individual. The advent of the internet and smart phones has exacerbated the problem. The produced stress can lead to impaired sleep. Indeed, it is estimated that over half of Americans sleep too little due to stress. Not having a good night’s sleep has adverse effects upon the individual’s health, well-being, and happiness. Yet over 70 million Americans suffer from disorders of sleep and about half of these have a chronic disorder. These disorders include insomnia, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, and restless leg syndrome.

 

Beyond problems with sleep disorders, simply not getting enough sleep impairs behavior during wakefulness including constant yawning, the tendency to doze off when not active for a while; for example, when watching television, grogginess when waking in the morning, sleepy grogginess experienced all day long, poor concentration, and mood changes with the individual becoming more irritable. Obviously, people in modern society need to get more and better quality sleep. About 4% of Americans revert to sleeping pills. But, these do not always produce high quality sleep and can have problematic side effects. So, there is a need to find better methods to improve sleep even in the face of modern stressors.

 

Contemplative practices have been reported to improve sleep amount and quality and help with insomnia (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/sleep/). In today’s Research News article “The Effects of Mind-Body Interventions on Sleep Quality: A Systematic Review”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1131594823531109/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4487927/

Neuendorf and colleagues review the literature on the effectiveness of mind-body practices for the improvement of sleep. They reviewed findings for biofeedback, guided imagery, hypnotherapy, meditation, relaxation, and yoga, qi gong, and tai chi effects on sleep. They found overall mixed results. But, hypnotherapy, meditation, yoga, and qi gong and tai chi appeared to be somewhat effective in promoting sleep.

 

How do these mind-body practices improve sleep? One obvious possible mechanism is by stress reduction. Mind-body practices have been shown to reduce both physiological and psychological responses to stress (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/stress/) and stress is known to interfere with sleep. Another possibility is that these practices are known to reduce mind wandering and intrusive thoughts which are often a problem in trying to go to sleep. Additionally, these practices are known to improve emotion regulation (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/emotions/), and powerful emotions can interfere with sleep. Regardless, of the mechanism, these practices are inexpensive and safe, having very few adverse effects, and have many other beneficial effects in addition to improving sleep. There is not much to lose and potentially a great deal to gain.

 

So, engage in mind-body practices and sleep better mindfully.

 

“I’ve always envied people who sleep easily. Their brains must be cleaner, the floorboards of the skull well swept, all the little monsters closed up in a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed.”  ― David Benioff

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

When Nothing Else Works for Depression Mindfulness Can!

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“When I see new patients with treatment-resistant depression, I tell them that if they want to borrow some of my optimism, they’re welcome to it. . .Despite how it feels, lots of people have been through this and lots of people get better.” – Ian Cook

 

Major Depression is the most common mental illness affecting over 6% of the population. The first line treatment is antidepressant drugs. But, depression can be difficult to treat. Of patients treated initially with drugs only about a third attained remission of the depression. After repeated and varied treatments including drugs, therapy, exercise etc. only about two thirds of patients attained remission. This leaves a third of all patients treated without success. These patients are deemed to have treatment-resistant depression.

 

Being depressed and not responding to treatment is a terribly difficult situation. The patients are suffering and nothing appears to work to relieve their intense depression. Suicide becomes a real possibility. So, it is imperative that other treatments be identified that can be applied when the typical treatments fail. In today’s Research News article “Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, and Depression Specific Yoga and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy in Management of Treatment Resistant Depression: Review and Some Data on Efficacy”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1130698403620751/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4609854/

Pradhan and colleagues review the research literature on alternative treatments for treatment-resistant depression; ketamine, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and yoga and mindfulness interventions.

 

They report that infusion of the drug Ketamine, a glutamate receptor (NMDA) antagonist, has been shown to be effective quickly for treatment-resistant depression. Unfortunately its effects last only about a week and it has some troubling side effects. Another treatment, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) stimulates the human cortex through external magnetic stimulation and can be applied non-invasively. It appears to be effective for the relief of treatment-resistant depression in about half of the patients and it has very few and mild side effects. But treatments must be provided on a daily basis in a doctor’s office. So, it is very inconvenient and thereby often impossible for the patients.

 

Contemplative practices such as meditation and yoga are low cost and generally safe with few if any side effects. They have been shown to be effective for depression and to prevent relapse (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/depression/). A combination of cognitive behavioral therapy with mindfulness and meditation techniques, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) has been demonstrated to be effective for depression even after drugs have failed to relieve the depression (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/dealing-with-major-depression-when-drugs-fail/).

Pradhan and colleagues perform a pilot study of a combination of MBCT and yoga they term Depression Specific Y-MBCT (DepS Y-MBCT) applied to treatment-resistant depression patients, one third of whom had suicidal tendencies. Of the 32 participants, 27 achieved remission from depression that was maintained for at least two months. These are exciting findings. A low cost and safe therapeutic technique combining mindfulness, yoga, and cognitive behavioral therapy produced and 85% remission rate for patients who did not respond to other treatments. Of course, these results need to be repeated in a randomized clinical trial. But, these results certainly justify the effort.

It is interesting that a disease like depression that is thought to be organically based in defective brain chemistry can be treated by a behavioral treatment. But, yoga and meditation have been found to alter the structure, connectivity, and chemistry of the brain. So, it may not be so mysterious how a behavioral treatment might be effective for a primarily physiological disorder. The mind and body are one. Treating the mind can also treat the body. This is one of the major messages of the alternative medical treatment movement.

 

So, apply mindfulness when nothing else works for depression.

 

“Start living right here, in each present moment. When we stop dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, we’re open to rich sources of information we’ve been missing out on—information that can keep us out of the downward spiral and poised for a richer life.” ― Mark Williams

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Up to your Neck in Pain – Try Yoga

psyjdc 6 Comments

 

“For many people, managing pain involves using prescription medicine in combination with complementary techniques like physical therapy, acupuncture, yoga and massage. I appreciate this because I truly believe medical care should address the person as a whole – their mind, body, and spirit.” – Naomi Judd

 

We all have to deal with pain. It’s inevitable, but hopefully mild and short lived. But, for many, pain is a constant in their lives. The most common forms of chronic pain are back and neck pain. Indeed, back pain is the number one cause of disability worldwide. In addition, neck pain is the number three cause of chronic pain; affecting more than a quarter of Americans. People who experience chronic back and neck pain are limited in their daily activities and may compensate in order to walk, run, sit, etc. and the compensatory postures can produce further sometimes different problems.

 

There are a myriad of causes for chronic back and neck pain, including something as simple as improper positioning while sleeping, or even sitting or standing with bad posture. It can also occur due to injuries, accidents, heavy lifting or other spinal issues. These types of pain are not only a problem for the individual but are also costly for society as they constitute the largest category of medical insurance claims.

 

Just as there are many different causes there are also a plethora of treatments for back and neck pain. The most common is the use of drugs, including over –the-counter pain relievers and at times opiates. These are helpful but have limited effectiveness. Sometimes the pain can lead to surgical interventions that can be costly and are not always effective. So, alternative treatments such as acupuncture have also been used with some success. Yoga is another promising alternative treatment for back and neck pain. Many forms of yoga focus on the proper alignment of the spine, which could directly address the source of back and neck pain for many individuals.

 

We’ve seen in previous posts that yoga can be effective for the relief of chronic low-back pain

http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/11/23/treat-back-pain-with-yoga/. Indeed, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) which includes yoga practice is effective for low back pain (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/10/17/control-low-back-pain-with-mindfulness/).In today’s Research News article “Effectiveness of Iyengar yoga in treating spinal (back and neck) pain: A systematic review”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1124994394191152/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4278133/

Crow and colleagues review the published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of the application of yoga for the relief of back and neck pain. They found that yoga produced clinically significant improvements in pain intensity. There was clear and strong evidence for effectiveness on the short term. Only three trials had long-term follow-up but were supportive that yoga has sustained effectiveness.

 

Yoga has many positive benefits for the physical and psychological well-being of the individual and can even provide spiritual benefits. It is generally safe when taught by well-trained yoga instructors, but can still have some adverse effects and practice needs to be tempered with moderation and caution. The present review, hiowever, provides strong support for its use in treating chronic back and neck pain.

 

So, practice yoga and relieve chronic back and neck pain

 

“The practices of Yoga equip us with tools for transcending this suffering – and for transcending our moments of happiness, too. Even moments of elation, contentment, and joy carry the future pain of their termination, after all.”  – Sharon Gannon & David Life

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies