Success Stories: Yoga & Mental Health

Research and anecdotal evidence of yoga’s effect on mental health abounds. Bo Forbes reports on this topic quite clearly. She is a practicing psychotherapist with a doctorate in clinical psychology who incorporated yoga techniques into her practice. For example, she reports:

Certain practices increased energy for people with depression, and other [practices] grounded and calmed individuals with anxiety. The results were hard to dismiss: people got better more fully and rapidly when I integrated yoga postures and breathing exercises into psychotherapy than they did with traditional psychotherapy alone… It can feel like anxiety and depression are permanently wired into you, but they are not…. the mind, brain and body, and therefore our emotional patterns, are capable of change. – Bo Forbes PsyD