Yoga Therapy for Optimizing Hormonal Balance
Yoga Therapy and The Science of Ayurveda:
"Yoga Therapy for Optimizing Hormonal Balance"
Yoga and mindfulness based stress reduction therapy for hormonal balance and the prevention of menopausal symptoms
Article Summaries
Endocrine and psychosocial moderators of mindfulness-based stress reduction for the prevention of perimenopausal depressive symptoms
Synopsis- The current study aimed to test whether Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, an 8-week group intervention involving meditation and yoga, to reduce the risk of depressive symptoms among perimenopausal women. Study involved 104 healthy women in menopause transition 45-55, in a randomized study. Of the 44 women randomized they reported fewer depressive symptoms, less perceived stress, less anxiety, increased resilience, and improved sleep with yoga and meditation. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction appears to be an effective intervention for the prevention of depressive symptoms in the menopause transition. Several baseline characteristics predicted a greater mood benefit of MBSR. Results also revealed less depressive mood, less perceived stress and anxiety, increased psychological resilience, and increased mindfulness in the 6 months following the intervention.
2. Beyond Estrogen: Treatment Options for Hot Flashes
Synopsis- The effects of yoga on menopausal symptoms have been investigated in 13 randomized trials with a total of 1306 participants. Yoga can reduce psychological, somatic, vasomotor, and urogenital menopausal symptoms. This mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy of mindfulness and yoga has evidence of effectiveness and may be an ideal choice for treatment of hot flashes. Complementary and alternative medication trials are fraught with additional limitations, namely, a large placebo effect, greater homogeneity of participants, lack of validated tools, and lack of robust reporting of adverse effects.
3. Yoga and menopausal transition
Synopsis- There have been multiple studies that have combined the many aspects of Yoga into a general Yoga session in order to investigate its effects on menopausal symptoms.The integrated approach of Yoga therapy can improve hot flushes, night sweats, memory, mental balance, attention, concentration, delayed and immediate verbal retention and recognition. Eight weeks of an integrated approach to yoga therapy resulted in better outcome as compared to physical activity in reducing climacteric symptoms, perceived stress and neuroticism in perimenopausal women. Integrated approach to Yoga therapy can improve hot flushes and night sweats. There is increasing evidence suggesting that even the short-term practice of Yoga can decrease both psychological and physiological risk factors for Cardiovascular Disease. Meditation increases plasma melatonin levels and effectively improves sleep quality. Yoga is effective in improving sleeping patterns to combat insomnia and other sleep disorders in postmenopausal women. Yoga is a free-of-cost noninvasive method that is effective and strongly recommended to all women of menopausal age. Yoga does have the potential to provide physical, mental and emotional health benefits.
4. Effects of Yoga and Aerobic Exercise on Actigraphic Sleep Parameters in Menopausal Women with Hot lashes
Synopsis- This study involved 186 women ages 40-62 who participated in 8-16 week sessions. There is modest support that yoga is shown to improve sleep stability in women with poor self-reported sleep quality. Changes seen in this study are small. Randomized controlled trials failed to show significant improvements in self-reported sleep with yoga compared to gentle exercise, moderate-intensity walking, or usual care. Analyses of people in the study who improved in two of these studies showed that higher levels of exercise predicted greater improvement in sleep.
5. Effect of yoga therapy on physical and psychological quality of life of perimenopausal women in selected coastal areas of Karnataka, India
Synopsis- This was a Controlled Study of 216 perimenopausal women with 45 min/day of 12 weeks of yoga therapy or regular exercise to study the effect of yoga therapy on physical, psychological, vasomotor and sexual symptoms of perimenopause women. Asanas, pranayama and dhyana, yoga therapy, seem to improve the symptoms in the four areas tested through physiological and biochemical mechanisms. The improvement in physical strength and fitness caused by yoga is related to muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, cardiorespiratory fitness, body composition and pulmonary function. The intense stretching and muscle conditioning associated with holding yoga poses increases the skeletal muscle oxidative capacity and decreases glycogen utilization, increased vascularization, increased intramuscular oxygen and glycogen stores and an increased number of mitochondria. Yoga also increases absorption of the calcium from the intestine, stimulates bone remodeling and load bearing capacity; reduces pain in the back of the head, neck, lower back and headache by influencing limbic system modulation of endogenous pain control system.
6. Impact of yoga intervention on menopausal symptoms-specific quality of life and changes in hormonal level among menopausal women
Synopsis- A single-blinded randomized control trial was conducted with 80 participants aged 40 to 50 years old and was randomly divided into two study arms; Sudarshan Kriya Yoga (SKY) and brisk walking intervention, to find the effect on the hormonal changes and menopausal quality of life. Significant improvements in the menopausal-specific quality of life were observed in the domain of vasomotor, psychosocial, and physical symptoms. The antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) were significantly elevated after 1 year of regular practice of SKY compared to walking intervention. No significant improvement was observed in follicle-stimulating hormone and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate levels. SK Yoga practice could be one of the preferred non-hormonal, lifestyle-modifying regimens for improving the overall quality of life in menopausal women.
7. Hatha Yoga practice decreases menopause symptoms and improves quality of life: A randomized controlled trial
Synopsis- 88 postmenopausal women participated in the 12 week trial with a control group, exercise group and Hatha Yoga group. After 12 weeks, yoga participants showed lower scores for menopausal symptoms, stress levels and depression symptoms, as well as significantly higher scores in quality of life when compared to control and exercise groups. Only the control group presented a significant increase in cortisol levels. The yoga and exercise groups showed decreased levels of FSH and LH when compared to the control group. The results show that yoga promotes positive psychophysiological changes in post-menopausal women and may be applied as a complementary therapy.
8. Yoga for Menopausal symptoms
Synopsis- The effects of yoga on menopausal symptoms have been investigated in 13 randomized trials with 1306 participants comparing yoga to no treatment in menopausal women. Yoga has been proven to reduce psychological, somatic, vasomotor, and urogenital menopausal symptoms. Compared with no treatment, yoga reduced total menopausal symptoms. Compared with exercise controls, only an effect on vasomotor symptoms was found. Yoga seems to be effective and safe for reducing menopausal symptoms. Effects are comparable to those of other exercise intervention.
9. Effectiveness of Yoga for Menopausal Symptoms: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials
Synopsis- Randomized controlled trials were included if they assessed the effect of yoga on major menopausal symptoms; psychological symptoms, somatic symptoms, vasomotor symptoms, and urogenital symptoms. 5 trials with 582 participants were reviewed. This review found moderate evidence for short-term improvements of psychological symptoms in menopausal women after yoga interventions. However, no evidence was found for improvements regarding somatic, vasomotor, urogenital, or total menopausal symptoms. (See above article “Yoga for Menopausal Symptoms” six years later with Cramer and Louche). The conclusions are not in line with a recent qualitative systematic review on mind-body interventions, which concluded that there was moderate evidence that yoga might relieve common menopausal symptoms including vasomotor and psychological symptoms. On the other hand, the finding of a small significant reduction of psychological symptoms in the present review is also not in line with another systematic review that concluded that yoga is ineffective in relieving any menopausal symptoms including psychological symptoms.
***Limitations of the study; small total number of eligible RCTs, no longer-term follow up, statistical heterogeneity, high risk of bias of interpretation of the results. Further limitations include the restriction of eligible publication languages, and the use of compound scores for psychological symptoms. Therefore, the specific variables that were improved by the yoga interventions, for example, depression, anxiety, or sleep, could not be evaluated.*
10. Yogic Sleep and Walking Protocol Induced Improvement in Sleep and Wellbeing in Post-menopausal Subject: A Longitudinal Case Study During COVID Lockdown
Synopsis- This study examined the effect of 24 weeks of yoga-nidra practice (30 minutes per day) with walking (30 minutes per day) on a 56 year old postmenopausal woman. This was tested after taking a baseline of 4 weeks on parameters like sleep latency, total sleep time, mood on waking and during the day, BMI, and activity rhythm of the body using 24 h actigraphy and sleep diary. There was a remarkable elevation in mood both on waking up and the entire day from 5th week onwards. Mood shifted toward a happier state. Latency to sleep decreased after 4 weeks, and total sleep time improved only after 16 weeks of Yoga nidra and exercise. The BMI was also reduced to 28.4 from 30.3. Morning awakening patterns did not change, but it was not accompanied by pain or headache. Yoga Nidra provides a profound relaxation similar to naturally occurring deep sleep is consciously attained to derive complete physical, mental, and emotional relaxation. In yoga-nidra practice, a sleep-like state is achieved consciously, without getting into the unconscious sleep or full awakening. The results obtained from this study clearly indicate the therapeutic potential of yoga-nidra and exercise.
Review of Findings and Synopsis
Scientific studies of Yoga Therapy for menopause symptoms are important because women who are of menopausal age experience many adverse side effects of the drop in estrogen and progesterone. Side effects may include depressive symptoms, night sweats, sleep disorders, osteoporosis, hair loss and many other adverse symptoms. The traditional treatment for menopause involves Hormone Replacement Therapy HRT. When replacement hormones are given, it helps to alleviate some menopausal symptoms but creates many new ones. The potential for new and more serious adverse effects such as; heart disease, stroke, blood clots and a much higher rate of breast cancer are all associated with HRT. These risks are serious and make the need for alternative therapies crucial.
Multiple Scientific studies have proven that Yoga therapies including Yoga asana practice, pranayama and Yoga Nidra have all been shown to have the potential to provide physical, mental and emotional health benefits for women during the menopause transition. Yoga therapies are noninvasive, effective and strongly recommended to all women of menopausal age. Yoga therapies are a great alternative with no adverse side effects.
Yoga, meditation, yoga nidra have been proven to reduce psychological, somatic, vasomotor, and urogenital menopausal symptoms.
Psychological symptoms that were improved by yoga therapies include; fewer depressive symptoms, less perceived stress, less anxiety and increased resilience.
Yoga improves physical symptoms. Findings show that yoga improves memory, mental balance, attention, concentration, delayed and immediate verbal retention and recognition. Yoga is also shown to reduce adverse symptoms of hot flashes and night sweats.
The improved physical strength and fitness caused by yoga is related to muscular strength, endurance, flexibility, cardiorespiratory fitness, body composition and pulmonary function. The intense stretching and muscle conditioning associated with holding yoga poses increases the skeletal muscle oxidative capacity and decreases glycogen utilization, increased vascularization, increased intramuscular oxygen and glycogen stores and an increased number of mitochondria. Yoga also increases absorption of the calcium from the intestine, stimulates bone remodeling and load bearing capacity; reduces pain in the back of the head, neck, lower back and headache by influencing limbic system modulation of endogenous pain control system. Yoga has been shown to decrease both psychological and physiological risk factors for Cardiovascular Disease. Studies show yoga practice has also been proven to lower stress levels and cortisol promoting positive psychophysiological changes. Yoga is effective in improving sleeping patterns to combat insomnia and other sleep disorders in postmenopausal women. Meditation has been shown to increase plasma melatonin levels, effectively improving sleep quality and total sleep time.
With all of the scientific data to support the health benefits of yoga therapies for menopausal symptoms and no adverse risks or side effects, yoga therapies show great potential to alleviate suffering and greatly improve quality of life.
Reference List
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