Yoga can teach patients how to balance life again.
Car accidents, robbery, a natural disaster, domestic violence – these are all things that people would rather not experience again after living through them once. Unfortunately, people who have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can relive these events constantly in their minds. However, new research suggests yoga can teach these individuals how to balance life again, as reported by dailyRX.
In a study conducted at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, researchers treated American war veterans with mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) therapy, which consisted of two to three hours of yoga, meditation and other exercises a week.
Over the course of six months, the researchers observed improvements in their subjects' symptoms.
Peter Strong, founder of The Boulder Center for Mindfulness Therapy, said that the key to MBSR practices, such as Massachusetts yoga classes, is increasing one's ability to engage with both the inner emotions and the outside world.
"Through training, we can cultivate a non-reactive mindfulness-based relationship with the contents of our mind, including painful and traumatic memories," Strong told the news source. "We can learn to 'sit' with our inner pain without becoming lost in reactive thinking and the suffering that accompanies reactive thinking."
Within a year, 3.5 percent of American adults experience PTSD, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Symptoms may include persistent flashbacks, emotional numbness or insomnia.
People who looked at this item also looked at…
Related items
Tags: Balance life, how to balance life, Massachusetts yoga, Massachusetts yoga classes
