Abstract
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 10-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 = 0.004, 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 = 0.03, f2 = 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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Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Funding
Research described in this article was financially supported by the National Institute of Nursing Research of the National Institutes of Health, award number RO1NR012005. The randomized controlled trial is registered at clinicaltrials.gov (identifier: NCT01384916).
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Contributions
JLW: developed hypotheses, conducted data analyses, and wrote paper. GT: collaborated on design and execution of parent study RCT, and collaborated in development, writing, and editing of final manuscript. IWM: collaborated on design and execution of parent study RCT, and collaborated in development, writing, and editing of final manuscript. LAU: principal investigator of RCT, collaborated with development of manuscript, and assisted with data analyses and writing. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The institutional review board of Butler Hospital approved the study. All persons gave their informed consent prior to inclusion in the study.
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L.A.U.’s spouse is employed by AbbVie pharmaceuticals.
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West, J.L., Tremont, G., Miller, I.W. et al. Yoga v Health Education for Attentional Processes Relevant to Major Depressive Disorder. Mindfulness 12, 604–612 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01519-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01519-y