Battling the Winter Blues Isn’t a Reach

This can be a tough time of year for many of us. The winter days are short, the nights long, we’re battling colds, bills are stacking up past the holidays and there typically isn’t that much going on to get us out and interacting socially with others.

Fortunately, an increasing body of research suggests a mood fix might only be a “sun salutation” away.

Chris Streeter, M.D., a professor of psychiatry and neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine, has investigated the health benefits of yoga and is conducting a follow-up study as well on the effectiveness of yoga for symptoms of depression.

Those who practice yoga, compared with those who walk, experience mood improvements and a decrease in anxiety, according to Streeter’s earlier body of work, published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

Using scans of the physiological changes in the brains of 34 psychologically healthy young men and women,  she demonstrated a relationship between increased levels of gamma-amino butyric acid, or GABA, a neurotransmitter associated with better mood and lower anxiety, and yoga. 

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Here’s how yoga works to alleviate symptoms of depression. First, stretching appears to counteract the muscle tensing that happens as part of the fight or flight response to perceived threats.

“Our muscles tend to tighten up when we’re stressed,” said Phillip Manser, a Malibu-based yoga teacher. “We tense our stomachs, our shoulders, in a protective mode. When we stretch those muscles, whether actively or passively, they relax.”

That action sends a reverse message to the nervous system that things are okay. Long-time yogis call it “getting the issues out of our tissues.”

The second factor involves cultivating a less reactive approach to stress.

“I don’t think stretching is the mechanism,” said Ellen Fein, LCSW, CYT, a yoga therapist in Montpelier, Vermont. “We’re teaching people an ability to observe themselves, to notice what’s happening in their bodies when they’re in a pose.”

In working with patients struggling with cancer and depression, she said that when you hold a pose and take deep breaths, “You’re really training your body and your mind to have an observing capacity and not just a reacting capacity.”

Related: Is Exercise the Best Drug for Depression?

“When you’re depressed, you think, ‘I feel so bad I can’t get out of bed,’” Fein said. “But if you’re able to observe how you’re feeling and say, ‘I understand that this is a bad mood, moods come and go, I won’t necessarily feel that way tomorrow,’ then that’s healthy. That’s what yoga cultivates.”

She added, “If you can step back from pain — emotional or physical — it’s really a powerful tool.”

Finally, yoga may be a resource for those dealing with crisis. When Malibu-based mom and graphic designer Katherine Terrell watched her son, Zander, endure a two-week hospitalization for severe burn wounds, she said “yoga was my only salvation for sanity.”

Sleeping in a hospital room with her then 14-month-old son who was wrapped in bandages and crying constantly from the pain, she described how she was “physically drained and emotionally exhausted.” Her husband, Brian, brought her a yoga mat. She went to a recreation room that was reserved for kids and did some yoga on her own.

Though she’s done yoga for 15 years, the experience reminded her what an important resource it was: “To me, it’s a mental and physical tune-up.”

Yoga teacher Manser agreed: “Your strength improves, and so does your balance, both physically and emotionally.”