(Washington, D.C.) – In a new NIH-funded pilot study, a research team led by Dr. Maren Nyer from Massachusetts General Hospital looked at a combination of yoga and heat, or hot yoga to determine if it can help alleviate people with depression symptoms.
After recruiting 80 participants they were randomly assigned to either at least two sessions of hot yoga per week for eight weeks, or to a waitlist that served as the control group
According to the study results at the end of the eight weeks only 16 people in the hot yoga group had their depression scores drop by more than half, indicating a substantial reduction in depression. Only two people in the control group experienced a similar reduction in depression symptoms. Twelve of the people in the hot yoga group had their scores drop low enough to be considered in remission from depression, compared to two in the control group.
