Yoga reduces chronic pain in women

A recent study has found that the physical and psychological symptoms of chronic pain in women with fibromyalgia can be cured through regular yoga sessions.

The condition of fibromyalgia is characterized by common symptoms like muscle stiffness, gastrointestinal discomfort and sleep disturbances, anxiety and depression. Researches, which were made earlier has shown that women with fibromyalgia have lower than average cortisol levels, which causes fatigue, pain and stress sensitivity.

Kathryn Curtis, a PhD student and faculty of Health in York’s department of Psychology revealed that the participants saliva showed increased levels of total cortisol while practicing 75 minutes of hatha yoga twice weekly over the course of 8 weeks.

She says “Ideally, our cortisol raised levels peak about 430-40 minutes after we get up in the morning and decline throughout the day until we are ready to go to sleep.”

She further says “The secretion of the hormone , cortisol is dysregulated in women with fibromyalgia.”

Cortisol can be understood as a steroid hormone that is produced and released by adrenal gland and acts as a component of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal(HPA) axis in response to stress.

The study is published in Journal of Pain Research