Inside Yoga 127 (19/1/15)
Recent scientific research has revealed that practising hatha yoga helps people aged over 55 improve their brain function.
Scientists at the University of Illinois, USA, studied a group of 108 adults aged between 55 and 79 with 61 of them practising yoga three times a week over an eight-week period. The others met for the same number and length of sessions and engaged in stretching and toning exercises instead of yoga.
The group were asked to perform cognitive tasks that are relevant to everyday life, and found that eight weeks of yoga classes significantly improved participants’ reaction time and accuracy in tests of cognitive function.
At the end of the eight weeks, the yoga group was speedier and more accurate on tests of information recall, mental flexibility and task-switching than it had been before the intervention. The stretching-and-toning group saw no significant change in cognitive performance over time. The differences seen between the groups were not the result of differences in age, gender, social status or other demographic factors, the research team reported.
Neha Gothe, who led the study with University of Illinois kinesiology and community health professor Edward McAuley, said: “Hatha yoga requires focused effort in moving through the poses, controlling the body and breathing at a steady rate. It is possible that this focus on one’s body, mind and breath during yoga practice may have generalizsed to situations outside of the yoga classes, resulting in an improved ability to sustain attention.”
“Participants in the yoga intervention group showed significant improvements in working memory capacity, which involves continually updating and manipulating information,” McAuley added.
“They were also able to perform the task at hand quickly and accurately, without getting distracted. These mental functions are relevant to our everyday functioning, as we multitask and plan our day-to-day activities.”
Gothe also said that previous studies have found that yoga can have immediate positive psychological effects by decreasing anxiety, depression and stress.
“These studies suggest that yoga has an immediate quieting effect on the sympathetic nervous system and on the body’s response to stress,” she said.
“Since we know that stress and anxiety can affect cognitive performance, the eight-week yoga intervention may have boosted participants’ performance by reducing their stress.”
These findings are not new to experienced yoga practitioners and the texts written by yogis, both modern and ancient, have also pointed out that yoga can help improve our cognitive abilities.
Here in the West, however, our approach to health is guided by scientific rational proof, nothing is believed unless scientists have done their controlled experiments to see for themselves – which is fine by me, but this takes time. Gradually and slowly an increasing number of scientists and those in the medical professions are beginning to accept the proof that yoga does really help on so many levels and in numerous areas of life.
To see the report go to Science Daily at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140818113215.htm
Any comments for me, please fill in the panel below
