Fibromyalgia Symptoms In Women May Decrease With Yoga

The popularity of yoga has increased dramatically over the past few years. As more Americans turn to yoga for exercise and stress relief, researchers have discovered that it can also be used as an alternative therapy to treat a variety of conditions, such as fibromyalgia.

York University researchers have found that practicing yoga can help reduce the physical and psychological symptoms of fibromyalgia in women.

Yoga Helps Manage The Pain Caused By Fibromyalgia

Participating in 75 minutes of yoga twice a week was shown to increase cortisol levels in study subjects. Cortisol is a steroid hormone that does not function properly in women with fibromyalgia. This is a potentially important discovery, since the condition primarily affects women.

According to scientists, people who experience chronic pain need to be able to focus their mind on something else to separate from the discomfort they are feeling.

“Yoga promotes this concept that we are not our bodies, our experiences or our pain. This is extremely useful in the management of pain,” said researcher Kathryn Curtis. “Moreover, our findings strongly suggest that psychological changes in turn affect our experience of physical pain.”