An explorative study of metabolic responses to mental stress and yoga practices in yoga practitioners, non-yoga practitioners and individuals with metabolic syndrome.
Anupama Tyagi, Marc Cohen, John Reece, Shirley Telles
BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine November 15, 2014 DOI: 10.1186/1472-6882-14-445 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational experimental study Randomized Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 46 |
| Population | Regular yoga practitioners, non-yoga practitioners, and metabolic syndrome patients |
| Interventions | Alternate nostril breathing Kapabhati breathing meditation mental arithmetic stress test |
| Duration | 5-minute interventions interspersed with 5 minutes of quiet resting |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Humans Breathing exercises Yoga Analysis of variance Stress, psychological Energy metabolism Oxygen consumption Middle aged Female Young adult Metabolic syndrome |
| Key findings | Regular yoga practitioners had significantly lower oxygen consumption across all phases and greater metabolic variability than non-practitioners and metabolic syndrome patients. All groups increased oxygen consumption during mental arithmetic stress, but metabolic syndrome patients showed blunted post-stress recovery while yoga practitioners recovered rapidly to baseline. The authors suggest regular yoga practice may mitigate metabolic syndrome. |
Abstract
Background: Stress places a metabolic burden on homeostasis and is linked to heightened sympathetic activity, increased energy expenditure and pathology. The yogic state is a hypometabolic state that corresponds with mind-body coherence and reduced stress. This study aimed to investigate metabolic responses to stress and different yoga practices in regular yoga practitioners (YP), non-yoga practitioners (NY) and metabolic syndrome patients (MS).
Methods: YP (n = 16), NY (n = 15) and MS (n = 15) subjects underwent an experimental protocol that comprised of different 5-minute interventions including mental arithmetic stress test (MAST), alternate nostril breathing (ANB), Kapabhati breathing (KB) and meditation (Med) interspersed with 5 minutes of quiet resting (neutral condition (NC)). During the intervention periods continuous body weight adjusted oxygen consumption (VO2ml/min/kg) was measured using open circuit indirect calorimetry with a canopy hood.
Results: This is the first study to report oxygen consumption (OC) in yoga practitioners during and after MAST and the first to report both within and between different populations. The results were analysed with SPSS 16 using 3X9 mixed factorial ANOVAs. The single between-subject factor was group (YP, NY and MS), the single within-subject factor was made up of the nine intervention phases (NC1, MAST, NC2, ANB, NC3, KB, NC4, Med, NC5). The results demonstrated that the regular YP group had significantly less OC and greater variability in their OC across all phases compared to the MS group (p = .003) and NY group (p = .01). All groups significantly raised their OC during the mental arithmetic stress, however the MS group had a significantly blunted post-stress recovery whereas the YP group rapidly recovered back to baseline levels with post stress recovery being greater than either the NY group or MS group.
Conclusions: Yoga practitioners have greater metabolic variability compared to non-yoga practitioners and metabolic syndrome patients with reduced oxygen requirements during resting conditions and more rapid post-stress recovery. OC in metabolic syndrome patients displays significantly blunted post-stress recovery demonstrating reduced metabolic resilience. Our results support the findings of previous randomised trials that suggest regular yoga practice may mitigate against the effects of metabolic syndrome. Clinical trial number: ACTRN12614001075673; Date of
Registration: 07/10/2014.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Cancer patients (clinical intervention study) | 2003 | Mixed methods: scale development, correlational, quasi-experimental, laboratory, experience-sampling, and clinical intervention study | |
| Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness. | 2008 | Controlled laboratory experiment | |
| Mindfulness and mind-wandering: Finding convergence through opposing constructs. | 2012 | Two studies: correlational study and experimental study | |
| Mental Training Enhances Attentional Stability: Neural and Behavioral Evidence | 2009 | Experimental study | |
| Mindfulness meditation and substance use in an incarcerated population. Incarcerated population | 2006 | Quasi-experimental with treatment-as-usual control condition |
Citations in the library
Cited by 3
- Meditation, Exceptional Psychophysiological Control, and Parapsychology The Oxford Handbook of Meditation October 4, 2019
- Perceived stress, resilience, well-being, and COVID 19 response in Isha yoga practitioners compared to matched controls: A research protocol. Contemporary Clinical Trials Communications May 21, 2021
- Effects of one month of Common Yoga Protocol practice appear to be mediated by the angiogenic and neurogenic pathway: A pilot study. Explore 2021
Cites 6
- Meditation as an intervention in stress reactivity. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1976
- A Yoga and Compassion Meditation Program Reduces Stress in Familial Caregivers of Alzheimer's Disease Patients Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2013
- Oxygen Consumption Changes With Yoga Practices Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine July 17, 2013
- Yoga ameliorates performance anxiety and mood disturbance in young professional musicians. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback August 6, 2009
- Mindfulness-based stress reduction in relation to quality of life, mood, symptoms of stress and levels of cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) and melatonin in breast and prostate cancer outpatients. Psychoneuroendocrinology May 2004
and 1 more in the library