SIMPLE YOGA POSES TO OVERCOME A BAD MOOD

When you’re having one of those days when you just can’t seem to shake off a bad mood and fume at every little thing, try doing yoga.

Here are a few yoga poses to get you back into a good mood, reports people.com:

 Open your heart with wheel pose: Sometimes when you’re in a bad mood, you just need to take deep breaths and oxygenate your body. Backbends are great heart-openers and they really boost your spirits. This pose will also get your heart rate up which energises you and helps with crankiness.

Go upside down with headstand: Headstand is another pose that you can try. It flips a switch in the brain letting all the blood flow in to the head.

 Challenge yourself with crow pose: One of the best ways to quit being cranky is to challenge yourself. When you hold yourself in an arm balance, you gain confidence and courage and it can help break your pattern of negative thinking.

BENEFITS RISK OF YOGA FOUND FOR BIPOLAR DISORDER

Right now no one can say whether yoga provides clinical benefits to people with bipolar disorder, but in a new article in the Journal of Psychiatric Practice, researchers report survey responses they gathered from scores of people with the condition who practice yoga. What the collective testimony suggests is that yoga can be a substantial help, but it sometimes carries risks, too.

There is no scientific literature on hatha yoga for bipolar disorder," said lead author Lisa Uebelacker, associate professor (research) of psychiatry and human behavior in the Alpert Medical School of Brown University and a staff psychologist at Butler Hospital. Hatha yoga is the practice, familiar in the West, in which people move between various poses. It often includes breathing practices and meditation. "There is reason to think that there are ways in which it might be wonderful and ways in which it might not be safe. We are interested in studying hatha yoga for bipolar as an adjunctive treatment to pharmacotherapy."

The preponderance of responses from more than 70 people who answered the study's online survey were that yoga has benefits for people with bipolar disorder. When asked, "What impact do you think yoga has on your life?" the vast majority of responses were positive and about one in five respondents characterized yoga as "life changing." One even said, "Yoga has saved my life. ... I might not be alive today were it not for yoga."

Twenty-nine other respondents said yoga decreased anxiety and promoted calm or provided other emotional benefits. Calm also emerged as a specific benefit for 23 survey respondents when asked how yoga affects mania symptoms. Other benefits that were mentioned repeatedly included distraction from depressive thoughts and increased clarity of thought.

"There is clearly evidence that yoga seems to be a powerful practice for some individuals with BD," the researchers wrote in the paper. "It was striking that some of our respondents clearly believed that yoga had a major positive impact on their lives."

Throughout the survey there was also evidence that yoga could be problematic for some people with BD, although fewer people cited problems.

In response to survey questions about whether yoga has had a negative impact, for example, five respondents cited cases in which rapid or energetic breathing made them feel agitated. Another became too relaxed after a slow, meditative practice: "I fell into a relaxed state ... near catatonic as my mind was depressed already. I was in bed for three days afterward."

And like some people in general who practice yoga, 11 respondents warned that there is the potential for physical injury or pain. Another four said they became self-critical or frustrated with their performance sometimes during yoga.

"It's possible that you want to avoid any extreme practice, such as extended periods of rapid breathing," Uebelacker said. The survey also raised some concerns about heated yoga, which is consistent with evidence that the use of certain medications for bipolar disorder, including lithium and antipsychotic medications, are associated with possible heat intolerance and resulting symptoms of physical illness.

Next: a pilot clinical trial

The online survey is the first stage in a research program that Uebelacker, who has spent several years studying yoga for unipolar depression, and colleague Lauren Weinstock, an expert in bipolar disorder, are developing to examine yoga for bipolar disorder. They now have a grant from the Depressive and Bipolar Disorder Alternative Treatment Foundation to run a pilot clinical trial in which they will compare outcomes from yoga to outcomes from using a well-regarded workbook for bipolar disorder.

Those results could set the stage for a larger trial with enough statistical power to rigorously identify benefits and risks, Uebelacker said.

For many bipolar patients, symptoms persist for decades despite multiple medications. The current studies of yoga, Uebelacker said, are part of a broader program at Butler and Brown to determine what else can help people who are already undergoing conventional therapies.

"We're looking at alternative ways to cope with suffering that is part of people's everyday lives so that there are other options in addition to ongoing medication and psychotherapy" Uebelacker said.

As their research continues, they will learn what role hatha yoga might play.

SPECIALIZED YOGA PROGRAM COULD HELP WOMEN WITH URINARY INCONTINENCE

An ancient form of meditation and exercise could help women who suffer from urinary incontinence, according to a new study from UC San Francisco.

In a study scheduled to be published on April 25, 2014 in Female Pelvic Medicine & Reconstructive Surgery, the official journal of the American Urogynecologic Society, UCSF researchers discovered that a yoga training program, designed to improve pelvic health, can help women gain more control over their urination and avoid accidental urine leakage.

"Yoga is often directed at mindful awareness, increasing relaxation, and relieving anxiety and stress," said first author Alison Huang, MD, assistant professor in the UCSF School of Medicine. "For these reasons, yoga has been directed at a variety of other conditions -- metabolic syndrome or pain syndromes -- but there's also a reason to think that it could help for incontinence as well."

Huang and her colleagues recruited 20 women from the Bay Area who were 40 years and older and who suffered from urinary incontinence on a daily basis. Half were randomly assigned to take part in a six-week yoga therapy program and the other half were not. The women who took part in the yoga program experienced an overall 70 percent improvement -- or reduction -- in the frequency of their urine leakage compared to the baseline. The control group -- or the group that did not start yoga therapy -- only had 13 percent improvement. Most of the observed improvement in incontinence was in stress incontinence, or urine leakage brought on by activities that increase abdominal pressure such as coughing, sneezing, and bending over.

Huang and her colleagues believe that yoga can improve urinary incontinence through more than one mechanism. Because incontinence is associated with anxiety and depression, women suffering from incontinence may benefit from yoga's emphasis on mindful meditation and relaxation. But regular practice of yoga may also help women strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor that support the bladder and protect against incontinence.

"We thought this would be a good opportunity for women to use yoga to become more aware of and have more control over their pelvic floor muscles," Huang said.

Approximately 25 million adults in America suffer from some form of urinary incontinence, according to the National Association for Continence. Up to 80 percent of them are women. Urinary incontinence becomes more common as women age, although many younger women also suffer from it.

"We specifically developed a yoga therapy program that would be safe for older women, including women with minor mobility limitations," Huang said. "So we were partially assessing safety of this program for older women who are at highest risk for having incontinence in the first place."

Not all types of yoga may help with urinary incontinence. The yoga program used in the study was specially designed with input from yoga consultants Leslie Howard and Judith Hanson Lasater, who have experience teaching women to practice yoga in ways that will improve their pelvic health. Still Huang and her colleagues believe that many women in the community can be taught to preserve pelvic muscle strength and prevent incontinence.

"It would be a way for women to gain more control over their pelvic floor muscles without having to go through traditional costly and time-intensive rehabilitation therapy," Huang said.

Men were not included in this study because urinary incontinence in men is often related to problems related to the prostate, which may be less likely to improve with yoga. Huang and her colleagues hope to eventually build on this study and double the length of the study to 12 weeks.

YOGA IN MENOPAUSE MAY HELP INSOMNIA

Taking a 12-week yoga class and practicing at home was linked to less insomnia -- but not to fewer or less bothersome hot flashes or night sweats. The link between yoga and better sleep was the only statistically significant finding in this MsFLASH (Menopause Strategies: Finding Lasting Answers for Symptoms and Health) Network randomized controlled trial.

"Many women suffer from insomnia during menopause, and it's good to know that yoga may help them," said lead author Katherine Newton, PhD, a senior investigator at Group Health Research Institute. She e-published these findings in Menopause, ahead of print.

"Hormone therapy is the only Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment for hot flashes and night sweats," Dr. Newton said, "and fewer women are opting for hormone therapy these days." That's why MsFLASH tried to see whether three more "natural" approaches -- yoga, exercise, or fish oil -- might help ease these menopause symptoms. The study assigned 249 healthy, previously sedentary women at multiple sites, including Group Health, to do yoga, a moderate aerobic exercise program, or neither -- and to take an omega-3 fatty acid supplement or a placebo.

Exercise seemed linked to slightly improved sleep and less insomnia and depression, and yoga also was linked to better sleep quality and less depression -- but these effects were not statistically significant. The omega-3 supplement was not linked to any improvement in hot flashes, night sweats, sleep, or mood.