Yoga · Meditation

Yoga, mindfulness-based stress reduction and stress-related physiological measures: A meta-analysis

Pascoe MC, Thompson DR, Ski CF · Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2017

Rather than relying on how people say they feel, this meta-analysis looked at physical markers of stress. It included 42 randomised controlled trials comparing practices that involve yoga postures (asanas), with or without mindfulness-based stress reduction, against active control groups. Compared with active controls, yoga-based practices were associated with lower evening and waking cortisol, lower ambulatory systolic blood pressure, lower resting heart rate, changes in heart rate variability, and lower fasting blood glucose, total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol. The authors conclude that yoga-based practices appear to be associated with better regulation of the body's main stress systems, the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. The main limitation is that the yoga programs studied were very different from each other, which makes it hard to say which style, dose or format matters most.

Our summaries describe what each study found. They are not medical advice, and the practices at Halcyon are not a treatment for any condition.