Yoga has been found to decrease anxiety and
improve well being, and now researchers have discovered a physiological
connection.Three times a week for
12 weeks, subjects either spent an hour walking or doing lyengar yoga, both workouts
that involved comparable effort and energy expenditure, according to a lead
study.
Brain scans have revealed
that only the yoga group showed significance increases in gamma-amniobutyric
acid, or GABA, an important mood regulating neurotransmitter.Moreover, the yoga group reported
greater improvement in positive feelings and more substantial decreases in
negative ones.
In previous
testing, experienced yoga practitioners exhibited more than a 25 percent rise
in the brain’s GABBA level after one-hour session of yoga.This response was stronger than that of the yoga novices in the current study, so the beneficial effects may increase with
long term practice, the researchers speculate.
