I’m a huge fan of yoga. I routinely prescribe it, for everything from back pain to insomnia. My love for yoga is personal, but it’s also professional. And the best part? It’s backed up by a whole lot of research.
Here are some of the ways yoga can make you healthier and happier:
1. Yoga can help treat depression.
There are many reasons yoga is a wonderful adjunctive or alternative therapy for depression. It’s stress-relieving, promotes mindfulness, and is a good form of exercise—strategies known to improve depression.
Everyone has fluctuations in mood and feels down in the dumps sometimes—it’s a normal part of the range of human emotion. But how do you know if what you’re experiencing is actually a clinical depression?
Here’s a simplified version of the PHQ-9, which is called the Patient Health Questionnaire. It’s one of the ways we screen for depression.
Over the last two weeks, have you been bothered by any of the following problems?
I’m so tired. How often do you say this? How often do you hear other people say it? In my experience, here's the answer to both these questions: All. The. Time.
Am I right? Some days it feels like everyone who walks into my office has the same concern. So, why is everybody so damn tired all the time? Fatigue would seem to be the plague of our modern lives. If you find yourself in the chronically-tired camp, here are some common causes of fatigue:
In a study that was just presented this past weekend in Denver, moms who worked full-time reported better mental and physical health than stay-at-home moms. Researchers analyzed data on over 2,500 women who became mothers between 1978 and 1995.
When my first son was born, I suffered postpartum depression. Big time. There—I said it. Yep, becoming a new mom was like being hit by a Mack truck for me. But it took a long time—six months—for me to recognize what was actually going on.
And the thing is, if anyone should have known the signs, I should have.
Personally, I am a big fan of sleep. I haven't been getting as much of it, lately, as I'd like (my 18-month-old only recently started sleeping through the night)...and, frankly, it sucks.
Stressed? Anxious? Depressed? These are big problems, often with complicated solutions that involve a lot of lifestyle change. Which can be daunting, and tends to make a person feel rather...um, stressed.
Well, here's at least one easy thing you can do.
Get some magnesium into your system, girl.
It sounds too easy to be true, but surprisingly, this may be a remedy for a lot of what ails our modern lives.
Coffee has long been one of my favourite indulgences. Actually, let's be honest. I can't get through my day without visiting Starbucks. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say: I'm not alone in this. Even so...my sipping usually comes with a teeny bit of guilt.
Reasonable? Turns out, probably not. In fact, it looks like I just might be doing myself some good with my daily java.
