Yoga promotes mindful movement, in turn improving cognition, emotional processing and lowering stress.
Yoga is deeply linked to traditional Eastern medicine. It views the body as a system of energy channels and a series of connections - a perspective that does not easily align with Western medicine. But since the start of this century, scientific research on yoga has exploded.
Many recent studies assess yoga as a “complementary therapy” to be used alongside other treatments for problems such as back pain, depression, anxiety and arthritis.
A 2019 review paper that focused on an objective measure: brain scans. While the findings are not definitive, they indicate a way to bring yoga and science more convincingly together.
In this paper, the researcher reviewed different studies that used various types of brain scans to assess the impact of yoga practice on the brain. In six of the studies that were reviewed, the brains of longtime practitioners were compared to “yoga-naive” people, and participants were typically matched by age, health, and fitness or level of physical activity.
Five examined yoga as an intervention, scanning the brains of subjects before and after they were randomly assigned to a control group, or a defined period of yoga practice.
The primary researcher, Dr. Neha Gothe, a person of Indian origin, says that this is a “nascent field,” and most of the studies were small.
Yet despite varied populations, three patterns emerged with some consistency:
Yoga practice could be linked to increased gray matter volume in the hippocampus, a key structure for memory.
increased volume in certain regions of the prefrontal cortex, the seat of higher-order cognition. While the significance of these increases is not clear, it suggests that “there may be more connections between neurons, which can indicate better functioning of the brain.”
Greater connectivity across the “default mode network”. This network plays a role in processing memories, emotions and “self-referential processing”, i.e. processing information about yourself.
Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk and others have been vocal proponents of Yoga as a primary treatment for Trauma and depressive disorders. This is validated by many survivors who have progressed in their healing. This approach may become more mainstream in the years to come.