Mindfulness Yoga Research

   In the United States around 1 million people live with Parkinson’s disease (1). Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease worldwide. Parkinson’s disease affects functional mobility, balance and gait. For this reason, people with Parkinson’s disease have an increased risk of falls. The clinical signs of Parkinson’s disease include bradykinesia, rigidity, resting tremors and postural instability. Depression, anxiety and cognitive impairment are common.     There is no cure for this chronic condition. Therefore, the goals of the treatment for Parkinson’s disease are to ameliorate symptoms and to slow the progression of it with the combination of medications and routine rehabilitation training. The management offered can improve the patients’ quality of life. However, the long-term use of medications has potential complications.   Research on the use of yoga to improve the quality of life of patients with yoga has been promising....

  Evidence supports the use of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as treatment for anxiety and depression (1). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy uses strategies to address unhelpful thoughts and patterns of behavior to enable mechanisms that help to make a shift in the conditions that trigger and exacerbate symptoms of depression and anxiety.   Even though CBT is considered an effective therapy, fifty percent of adults who complete CBT continue to have symptoms (2). Therefore, adding strategies to augment the effectiveness of CBT is a path that warrants attention and research.   Incorporating mindfulness into CBT has shown promising results. Yoga is an ancient practice that integrates mindfulness and physical exercise through the combination of breathing, gentle movements and physical postures. Research has shown that yoga as a mind-body discipline has multiple benefits on health and wellbeing (3). Also, small studies have indicated that the practice of yoga may be benef...