Name: Elizabeth Liu Year & Program: 4th year Psychology Project Type: Research Essay
Name: Elizabeth Liu
Year & Program: 4th year Psychology
Project Type: Research Essay
Yoga Deserves Increased Recommendation as an Effective Treatment for PTSD
Luminate Mental Health Conference Series
Student Mental Health Initiative at York University
Luminate Mental Health Conference Series 
This is a very important post…Yoga is one of the greatest actions of staying healthy.
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Great poster Elizabeth; way to make a high-quality and important meta analysis from your writing in psych course! This is more of a specific question relating to meta analyses, but in future research, would you want to try to combine their statistical results together to find the average efficacy of yoga using some kind of weighted average by sample size, and/or does this depend on a) study design (eg duration of “treatment”, time span before vs. after, degree of PTSD etc) and/or b) whether they use the same scale to measure improvement?
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Looks interesting, for sure will give it a read when I can!
Thanks for doing this project 🙂
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Hi, this is a really interesting topic. Do you think that Yoga is a strong alternative to traditional CBT for PTSD or just an add-on to the treatment package? I’ve only known Yoga as a form of physical exercises so I’m wondering how Yoga can help with the emotional response of anxiety/fear or cognitive distortion usually seen in PTSD?
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Hi Anh, great question! I think that Yoga for PTSD can serve as a great treatment alternative, especially if CBT is inaccessible at the moment. The great thing about it is that it helps relieve PTSD symptoms without having to make an appointment and attend talk therapy sessions. Yoga for PTSD can also serve as a complementary therapy as well.
Many studies have found that yoga reduces PTSD symptoms significantly, and this includes feelings of anxiety, fear, hyperarousal, and cognitive distortions. It is hypothesized that since many PTSD symptoms are physical (dissociation, inflammation, being on guard, difficulty sleeping, physical reactions to triggers) yoga can directly intervene at this level to reduce physical symptoms by improving somatic regulation.
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I agree wholeheartedly, as yoga is one of those things (along with meditation & exercise), that helps with stress and keeping your thoughts or emotions under control. I think its an avenue definitley worth exploring
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Thanks for leaving your comment! Yes, I definitely agree, and hopefully increasing awareness of yoga for PTSD will help let others know that they have more options for trauma treatment that are more accessible and low-cost 🙂
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After reading, I will definitely try more Yoga
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That’s great to hear! I’m glad to hear this might help you increase your sense of wellbeing.
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