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Health See other Health Articles Title: Yoga Good for Teen Anxiety April 19, 2012 — Practicing yoga may improve the overall psychosocial well-being of teens and lower their anxiety, new research suggests. In a small, randomized study of high school students, those who participated in a Kripalu-based yoga program for a semester showed significantly improved total mood disturbance and tension/anxiety scores compared with the students who partook in just their usual physical education (PE) classes. This type of yoga program concentrates on breathing exercises and deep relaxation, meditation, and physical postures designed to develop strength and flexibility. "Although not causal due to small, uneven sample size, this preliminary study suggests preventive benefits in psychosocial well-being from Kripalu yoga during high school PE," write Jessica J. Noggle, PhD, from the Division of Sleep Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, in Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues. In addition, "as an acquired skill, there is an expectation that this will serve to maintain mental health characteristics over the long term, if these practices are continued." The study is published in the April issue of the Journal of Development and Behavioral Pediatrics. Paucity of Research "Although yoga and meditation techniques seem ideally suited to prevent or alleviate the psychological issues encountered by adolescents in high school, we are unaware of reports of any [other] randomized controlled studies within the school setting in this population," write the researchers. They report that the current pilot study is 1 of several they are creating to determine the feasibility and efficacy of yoga interventions. In a study published recently in the Journal of Behavioral Health Services and Research, the investigators examined the benefits of a Yoga Ed program on adolescent mental health. They found that the intervention significantly improved resilience, fatigue/inertia, and anger control. "Although promising, for this second pilot study we were interested in focusing on scales developed for normative adolescent populations, and basing the intervention on a different yoga style," they write. They evaluated 51 grade-11 or grade-12 students from a rural high school in western Massachusetts who registered for PE classes in 2009. The participants were randomly assigned in a 2:1 ratio to participate either in 30-minute sessions of yoga for 2 or 3 times a week for 10 weeks (n = 36; 61% girls) or in usual PE activities, such as tennis, volleyball, baseball, and first aid ("control group," n = 15; 47% girls). All students filled out questionnaires 1 week before the start of the intervention and 1 week after it ended. The study's primary outcomes were the psychosocial well-being characteristics of mood (as measured on the Profile of Mood States–Short Form [POMS-SF]) and affect (as measured on the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children [PANAS-C]). Secondary outcome measures included the Perceived Stress Scale, the Inventory of Positive Psychological Attitudes total scales and subscales, the Resilience Scale, the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory–2, and the Child Acceptance and Mindfulness Measure. Replication Needed Results showed that the students in the yoga group had significantly improved POMS-SF total mood disturbance scores (P = .015) and POMS-SF Tension-Anxiety subscale scores (P = .002) compared with the control group. In addition, improvements in negative affect scores were significantly higher for the yoga-practicing participants than for the control group, as measured on the PANAS-C (P = .006). There were no significant between-group differences for any of the secondary outcomes. "Increasing evidence supports the view that yoga is a practice which addresses multiple mental, emotional, and physical facets of the individual," write the investigators. They note that breathing, deep relaxation, meditation, and physical posture exercises probably down-regulate stress systems. "Larger 'field' studies in multiple schools with more active control conditions may yield more definitive conclusions by accounting for more confounders, affording group-level analyses, and supporting substudies of more diverse outcomes at the physiological and cognitive levels," conclude the investigators. The study was supported by private donor funds to the Institute of Extraordinary Living at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. Two of the study authors report having received consultant fees from the Kripalu Center. The other 2 study authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. J Dev Behav Pediatr. 2012;33:193-201. Abstract Poster Comment: Would be interesting to know if Kripalu-based yoga works best as a group effect or whether would work just as well practiced by an individual. Group practice probably better since less likely of anxiety being transferable. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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