A study reported by The Harvard Gazette offers new insights into alternative treatments for depression, suggesting that heated yoga may significantly alleviate depressive symptoms. Conducted by the Massachusetts General Hospital and documented in the “Journal of Clinical Psychiatry,” the research involved a controlled trial where adults with moderate-to-severe depression participated in heated yoga sessions and experienced more substantial symptom reduction compared to a control group on a waitlist.
The trial lasted eight weeks and included 80 participants, divided into two groups. One group undertook Bikram yoga sessions in a heated environment of approximately 40.6°C (105°F) for 90 minutes, while the control group was placed on a waitlist. Out of these, 33 individuals from the yoga group and 32 from the waitlist group completed the study and were included in the final analysis.
Participants in the heated yoga group attended an average of 10.3 sessions over the two months, which was more than the prescribed minimum of two classes per week. The results, as reported in The Harvard Gazette, were quite striking, with a significant number of the yoga group participants reporting a reduction in depressive symptoms. In fact, 59.3% of them saw their symptoms decrease by at least half, and 44% reached a point where their depression was considered to be in remission, based on their scores on the IDS-CR scale. This was in contrast to only 6.3% in the control group achieving similar improvement.
Maren Nyer, the lead researcher and an authority on Yoga Studies at the Depression Clinical and Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, remarked on the potential of heated yoga to transform depression treatment modalities. The Harvard Gazette quotes Nyer’s focus on the dual benefits of this approach—its non-pharmacological nature and the physical health advantages it brings.
The study participants reportedly responded well to the heated yoga sessions without experiencing any severe side effects. Senior author David Mischoulon, also from the Massachusetts General Hospital, underscored the necessity for future research to distinguish the specific benefits of heated versus non-heated yoga for depression treatment.
At Indie Hot Yoga all our HOT26 (Bikram), Vinyasa and PowerFlow classes are heated.
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