Study says yoga reduces anxiety and improves mood

NEVADA - Yoga has a greater positive effect on a person’s mood and anxiety level than other forms of exercise, according to a study published in the November edition of prestigious monthly Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

Yoga’s ability to improve mood and lessen anxiety is linked to increased levels of a critical brain chemical gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) that helps regulate nerve activity, according to this article in the peer-reviewed Journal based on the study by Dr. Chris C. Streeter from Boston University School of Medicine (Massachusetts, USA) and team of ten other experts.

It says that, based on psychological assessments, increased GABA levels measured after a session of yoga postures are associated with improved mood and decreased anxiety. Study suggests that the practice of yoga stimulates specific brain areas, thereby giving rise to changes in endogenous antidepressant neurotransmitters such as GABA.

Applauding the outcomes of this study, prominent Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, stressed the need for more funding and support for yoga research, as although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, yoga was a world heritage to be utilized and benefitted by all.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, also asked Government of India to launch a mega project to research, preserve, and promote yoga and open a world-class institute to support the yoga research and studies around the globe.

Rajan Zed further said that yoga, referred as “a living fossil” whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, was a mental and physical discipline handed down from one guru to next, for everybody to share and benefit from. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.

Kim A. Jobst of United Kingdom is the Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. from New Rochelle (New York, USA). (ANI)