Yoga v Health Education for Attentional Processes Relevant to Major Depressive Disorder
Open accessAbstract
Objectives Research has shown that yoga may be an effective adjunctive treatment for persistent depression, the benefits of which may accumulate over time. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the following in a sample of persistently depressed individuals: whether yoga increases mindfulness and whether yoga attenuates rumination. Rumination and mindfulness both represent attentional processes relevant for onset and maintenance of depressive episodes.Methods One-hundred-ten individuals who were persistently depressed despite ongoing use of pharmacological treatment were recruited into an RCT comparing yoga with a health education class. Mindfulness and rumination were assessed at baseline and across 3 time points during the ten-week intervention.Results Findings demonstrate that, compared to health education, yoga was associated with higher mean levels of the observe facet of mindfulness relative to the control group during the intervention period (p =.004, d =0.38), and that yoga was associated with a faster rate of increase in levels of acting with awareness over the intervention period (p= .03, f 2 =0.027). There were no differences between intervention groups with respect to rumination.Conclusions Results suggest a small effect of yoga on components of mindfulness during a 10-week intervention period. Previous research suggests that continued assessment after the initial 10 weeks may reveal continued improvement. Future research may also examine moderators of the impact of yoga on mindfulness and rumination, including clinical factors such as depression severity or depression chronicity, or demographic factors such as age.
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One study reported slight effectiveness of mindfulness yoga during a 2.5-month period.
“One study also reported slight effectiveness of mindfulness yoga during a 2.5-month period, which is similar to the conclusion we reached [62].”
From The effectiveness of mindfulness yoga on patients with major depressive disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (2023) · cites this paper as [62]
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- Authors
- West, J. L., Tremont, G., Miller, I. W., & Uebelacker, L. A.
- Affiliations
- Duke Medical Center (US)
- Brown University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Uebelacker, Lisa A.
- Venue
- Mindfulness
- Published
- 2020-10-29
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 604-612
- ISSN
- 1868-8527 (ISSN-L)
- 1868-8535
- PMC
- PMC7992499
- OpenAlex
- W3095161986
- Cited by
- 14
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3
- FWCI
- 0.70
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Mindfulness (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Nursing Research (R01NR012005)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Treatment of Major Depression
- Keywords
- yoga, major depressive disorder, dysthymia, rumination, attentional processes, health education, adjunctive therapy, acting with awareness, depression maintenance
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