{"id":2817,"date":"2018-05-22T00:17:31","date_gmt":"2018-05-22T00:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/?p=2817"},"modified":"2018-05-22T00:17:31","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T00:17:31","slug":"yoga-depression-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2018\/05\/yoga-depression-work.html","title":{"rendered":"How Does Yoga and Depression Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Depression is a lack of energy, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Yoga and depression help balance you by relieving painful muscles, balancing your hormone levels, and bringing you back into the present moment. Yoga\u00a0lets you clear your mind for a little while. Controlled, focused body movements create mindfulness. Mindfulness relieves anxiety and depression. Breathing exercises help bring oxygen levels back up in your body, which help heal aching muscles.<\/span><\/p>\n

How does yoga help depression?<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

Yoga increases serotonin levels in your brain. Serotonin<\/a><\/span> is one of your body’s happiness chemicals. Depressed people have low serotonin levels. Gentle movement or exercise is one way to increase serotonin. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are many types of yoga. Some are more vigorous than others. Gentle yoga exercises reduce stress and anxiety in a person by slowly stretching muscles and releasing more serotonin. The different body poses, breathing techniques, and mediation help with depression and\u00a0lack of concentration. Yoga has been used for people with long-term pain to help lessen their depression and increase pain tolerance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yoga and your heart<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

Yoga changes your heart rate and blood pressure. Depressed people tend to have high blood pressure and fast heart rate, putting them at risk for stroke and heart attack. If a depressed person is taking antidepressant medications, then the risk of heart attack and stroke increases because many antidepressants are hard on the heart. <\/span><\/p>\n

“The heart is a vulnerable space,” says Kimberly Wilson, author of\u00a0Hip, Tranquil Chick: A Guide to Life On and Off the Yoga Mat<\/i>. “Back bends help expand the heart center and help you exude confidence and grace.” Back bends ease breathing and improve posture. Back bends reduce stress by releasing the tension held in the tissues of the whole chest and lung region of the body.<\/span><\/p>\n

Find me on Twitter\u00a0 @tereziafarkas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Visit my website\u00a0http:\/\/www.tereziafarkas.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Depression is a lack of energy, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Yoga and depression help balance you by relieving painful muscles, balancing your hormone levels, and bringing you back into the present moment. Yoga\u00a0lets you clear your mind for a little while. Controlled, focused body movements create mindfulness. Mindfulness relieves anxiety and depression. Breathing exercises help…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,102,105],"tags":[5,4,12,158,67,169,47,6,121,225],"class_list":["post-2817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-depression-help-2","category-motivation","category-personal-growth","tag-beliefnet","tag-depression-help","tag-emotional-health","tag-healing","tag-healthy-living","tag-self-care","tag-stress","tag-terezia-farkas","tag-wellness","tag-yoga"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Does Yoga and Depression Work? - Depression Help<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yoga and depression help balance you by relieving painful muscles, balancing your hormone levels, and bringing you back into the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Does Yoga and Depression Work? - Depression Help\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yoga and depression help balance you by relieving painful muscles, balancing your hormone levels, and bringing you back into the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2018\/05\/yoga-depression-work.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Depression Help\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/on.fb.me\/1zSE4WB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-05-22T00:17:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Terezia Farkas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@tereziafarkas\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How Does Yoga and Depression Work? - Depression Help","description":"Yoga and depression help balance you by relieving painful muscles, balancing your hormone levels, and bringing you back into the","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How Does Yoga and Depression Work? - Depression Help","og_description":"Yoga and depression help balance you by relieving painful muscles, balancing your hormone levels, and bringing you back into the","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2018\/05\/yoga-depression-work.html","og_site_name":"Depression Help","article_author":"http:\/\/on.fb.me\/1zSE4WB","article_published_time":"2018-05-22T00:17:31+00:00","author":"Terezia Farkas","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@tereziafarkas","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2018\/05\/yoga-depression-work.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2018\/05\/yoga-depression-work.html","name":"How Does Yoga and Depression Work? - Depression Help","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-05-22T00:17:31+00:00","dateModified":"2018-05-22T00:17:31+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/#\/schema\/person\/d6c2df0b7a25217ed4853f2aec0340c9"},"description":"Yoga and depression help balance you by relieving painful muscles, balancing your hormone levels, and bringing you back into the","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2018\/05\/yoga-depression-work.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2018\/05\/yoga-depression-work.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2018\/05\/yoga-depression-work.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How Does Yoga and Depression Work?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/","name":"Depression Help","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Terezia Farkas","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/#\/schema\/person\/d6c2df0b7a25217ed4853f2aec0340c9","name":"Terezia Farkas","description":"Terezia Farkas is an international bestselling author in depression and grief. Terezia is a reiki master, psychic medium, and certified channeller. Visit Terezia Farkas on Twitter @tereziafarkas Website: http:\/\/www.tereziafarkas.com Honours: Alberta Lt. Governor Circle on Mental Health and Addictions award. Bell Let's Talk Social Media Ambassador 2017. CAMH (Canadian Addictions and Mental Health) 150 Difference Makers nominee. 2014 Global Crisis of Depression Summit at Kings Place in London on November 25, 2014, which included speakers Kofi A Anan, the 7th former Secretary General of the UN.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.tereziafarkas.com","http:\/\/on.fb.me\/1zSE4WB","https:\/\/x.com\/tereziafarkas"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/author\/tfarkas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2817"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2821,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817\/revisions\/2821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}