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eCAM Advance Access first published online on February 28, 2007
This version published online on April 11, 2007
eCAM, doi:10.1093/ecam/nel114
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© 2007 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Yoga as a Complementary Treatment of Depression: Effects of Traits and Moods on Treatment Outcome

David Shapiro1, Ian A. Cook1, Dmitry M. Davydov2, Cristina Ottaviani3, Andrew F. Leuchter1 and Michelle Abrams1

1Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 2Department of Neurophysiology, Moscow Research Center of Narcology, Moscow, Russia and 3Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

Preliminary findings support the potential of yoga as a complementary treatment of depressed patients who are taking anti-depressant medications but who are only in partial remission. The purpose of this article is to present further data on the intervention, focusing on individual differences in psychological, emotional and biological processes affecting treatment outcome. Twenty-seven women and 10 men were enrolled in the study, of whom 17 completed the intervention and pre- and post-intervention assessment data. The intervention consisted of 20 classes led by senior Iyengar yoga teachers, in three courses of 20 yoga classes each. All participants were diagnosed with unipolar major depression in partial remission. Psychological and biological characteristics were assessed pre- and post-intervention, and participants rated their mood states before and after each class. Significant reductions were shown for depression, anger, anxiety, neurotic symptoms and low frequency heart rate variability in the 17 completers. Eleven out of these completers achieved remission levels post-intervention. Participants who remitted differed from the non-remitters at intake on several traits and on physiological measures indicative of a greater capacity for emotional regulation. Moods improved from before to after the yoga classes. Yoga appears to be a promising intervention for depression; it is cost-effective and easy to implement. It produces many beneficial emotional, psychological and biological effects, as supported by observations in this study. The physiological methods are especially useful as they provide objective markers of the processes and effectiveness of treatment. These observations may help guide further clinical application of yoga in depression and other mental health disorders, and future research on the processes and mechanisms.

Keywords: anger – anxiety – baroreflex sensitivity – heart rate variability – unipolar major depression

For reprints and all correspondence: Dr David Shapiro, 760 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1759, USA. Tel: 310-825-0252; Fax: 310-206-8826; E-mail: dshapiro{at}ucla.edu

A sub-heading "Physiological Measures" has been inserted on page 4 of this article.

Received June 5, 2006; accepted December 14, 2006


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