YOGA FOR OCD
About YOGA FOR OCD
Stress can make OCD symptoms like compulsive checking and cleaning worse. So, reducing stress can be a powerful tool in OCD treatment.
Strong yoga asana (physical postures), meditation, and deep, slow breathing exercises using pranayama techniques can focus the mind away tension-creating obsessional thoughts and calm an overworked nervous system. Levels of the stress hormone cortisol are reduced, blood pressure and heart rate lowered, and oxygen uptake improved.
Mindfulness alongside the practice of Tratak, or candle gazing, has also been reported as helpful - stimulating and calming the pituitary gland.
There’s very limited research in this area but the available evidence suggests that pranayama can bring significant improvements on the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), the Symptoms Checklist-90-R, and the Perceived Stress Scale.
What the clinical studies say
Yoga
- Improvements on the Perceived Stress Scale
- Improvements on the Symptoms Checklist-90-R
- Improvements on the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS)
the clinical studies
Yoga
