If you’re a person who deals with elevated levels of anxiety or anxiety disorder, you may have been advised to develop a yoga practice as a complementary or alternative therapy. In addition to building muscle strength and suppleness, yoga slows your breathing and keeps your mind focused on the present. Afterward, you feel like you’ve just been on an island in the South Pacific for two weeks. With a personal masseuse. Named Fritz. (Or maybe Frida.) Who spent an hour on each foot alone. But why, exactly? What kind of science can be applied to this state of bliss?
Studies show it’s GABA, or gamma-aminobutryic acid, the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in our nervous system. Whereas dopamine ramps us up, GABA mellows us out.
Researchers know that people with depression and anxiety have been shown to have low amounts of GABA in their cerebrospinal fluid. But study after study has shown that after yoga, there’s a marked increase in a person’s GABA levels, whether they suffer from depression and anxiety or not. But if they do, then hurray!
If you’re having a hard time getting to yoga class, try some shorter meditations at home (I say shorter because most people don’t do a 30-minute meditation right off the bat. As my acupuncturist likes to remind me, it’s exercise for the brain, and you have to build up to it the same way you would with physical activity.)
As GABA falls into the category of amino acids, there are also a few foods with GABA. And, if you really like the supplement approach, yes, it does come in pill form, although just like many natural supplements, the jury is out with regard to its effectiveness. Plus, the pill form doesn’t include Fritz or Frida.
Do you derive a spa package-worth of benefits from yoga? What kind of yoga do you do? And did you know about GABA? (In all my years of reading about and dealing with anxiety issues, the name was completely new to me!)
Yes, I am familiar with GABA, but I didn’t know that yoga could have such a strong effect! We do yoga daily, and it is wonderful. What a nice article for you to have written! Thank you!
And thank you for reading! I, too, thought the data on the change in GABA levels was quite significant. Wishing you many more happy yoga days!
Wasn’t familiar with this, but it’s worth looking into, anything to lower anxiety levels without pills is good! Thanks 🙂
You’re most welcome, Lisa. Thanks for reading!
I haven’t made it as far as yoga yet, unless you count slowly raising to my lips a glass of ice-cold beer for 20 minutes every evening 🙂
Love the new layout of the site, Laura. Previous one was good, but this is very neat 🙂
I don’t believe the ‘slowly’ part at all, Chris. 😛
Thanks for the site feedback; it’s a work in progress. I have a new theme picked out but will do that conversion over the weekend, probably.
A nice reminder Laura; and do I ever need the help!
Thanks, Ken. And you continue to crack me up. 🙂
Gosh, never heard of GABA before but this sounds very interesting! I’ve done yoga off and on over the years (mostly off rather than on, I must confess) so your post comes as a useful prompt to get back to it again. And I’ll bear in mind the need to build up slowly – I’d never really considered that before other than in strenuous exercise such as running. (Also more off than on lately.) Thanks for the inspiration, Laura! 🙂
I share your confession. I always think that I can’t afford to sacrifice a cardio/weights session (and it’s hard enough to get to those), but I’m really thinking that it can keep a person fit in other ways.
I’ve never heard of GABA before either but it does explain the physiological change that happens when I’m doing regular meditation practice.
I like the new look of your site too–clever how you weave in healthy mind with travel. I’ll be curious to see your new theme.
Thanks, Jagoda. It’s fun to play with new designs, and also frustrating sometimes (I’m a Photoshop amateur), but mostly fun!
I tried Yoga long ago, but don’t think the DVD I bought was very good. I did do Pilates for over two years, and I really enjoyed that. Now I just need to get back into the habit. It’s amazing how paying attention to your body also helps mellow out one’s mind.
Hey Jeri! It’s amazing how we can ignore our bodies, too. I always thought I was pretty in tune to it, until I realized I wasn’t!!
Love my yoga, and it always makes me feel better about life. Even though I don’t (as of right this morning) deal with an anxiety disorder, maybe that’s part of the picture!
Hey, wouldn’t that be “preventive yoga,” then?!! Thanks for stopping by, Beverly.
Love the new blog template! You are getting fancy! great article. Thanks for the link to GABA foods. I am going out for some oolong for the office. I should have cherry tomatoes on my desk, too! Maybe in my new office, I can have cherry tomato plants year round and my clients can just pick and eat while they are waiting for me. xo
Ooohhh, you’re moving to a new office?! That’s exciting. Thanks for the feedback. I’m still playing with it but it’s too hard to ‘test’ in WordPress without just actually going live so I did, and will change as I go. 🙂
The only yoga that I’ve done involved Wii Fit.. but now I think I’ll be looking at it properly. I hadn’t heard of GABA so here’s to learning something new. Bring on the mellow! 🙂
I think I’m going to adopt “bring on the mellow” as my daily mantra! Thanks for stopping by, Ashleigh.
Yoga practice helps develop the body and mind bringing a lot of health benefits yet is not a substitute for medicine. It is important to learn and practice yoga techniques under the supervision of a trainer.
I concur on both points! Thank you.
Well, isn’t that interesting? My daughter has been nudging me toward yoga for a couple of years now, and I keep finding reasons to do something else instead. (And, no, by “something else” I’m not referring to parking my bum on the couch and staring at a screen, although I do too much of that for sure.) Clearly she knows what she’s talking about!
I was initially drawn to yoga when I started to feel like all my soft tissue was contracting in amounts to match each year I aged, and I think I get as much of a mental health benefit out of it as I do physical. Finding a good teacher is also crucial because they set the tone for the type of energetic that’s in the room. So give it a try, Kern! You’ve got nothing to lose. Every teacher I’ve ever encountered has always been very accommodating of all different skill and knowledge levels in the class, too, so no need to fear being the newbie.