Tag: yoga and hot flashes

Yoga May Help Women in Menopause, Research Shows

Posted on by Tammy

Yoga may help women limit symptoms of menopause, according to researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle, the Daily Mail reported. The researchers found stress reduction therapies, including yoga, may offer an alternative to hormone replacement therapy for women in menopause. The review was published in the menopause journal Climacteric.

Professor Nancy Woods and colleagues are the first to study the effect of these therapies on multiple issues, including hot flashes and low mood, rather than individual problems, and examined non-drug studies, including herbal medicine, Chinese medicine, yoga, exercise and relaxation.

The researchers found relaxation therapies and yoga showed the most promise, and yoga significantly cut hot flushes, while improving concentration, sleep and pain levels. Also, in certain groups, yoga showed benefits for sleep, mood, and pain symptoms

‘Selected mind-body therapies may provide useful treatment for menopausal symptoms, although properly controlled studies are still required to confirm these benefits,’ Woods stated. “In particular, yoga showed significant treatment effects for hot flushes and cognitive symptoms.”

Yoga Helps Women Balance Hormones

Posted on by Tammy

Yoga has a huge number of benefits, from relaxation, mind and body balance, toning and so much more. In an article recently published on Yahoo.com, the author noted three ways yoga can help balance women’s hormones, including easing hot flashes from menopause, reliving anxiety and increasing libido.

Helping the Hot Flashes
An Indian study of 120 women proved the connection between yoga and the reduction of hot flashes, finding those who practiced yoga five days a week for an hour each time, which including breathing exercises and meditation, hot flashes and night sweats reduced by 50 percent compared to those just doing stretching exercises. The yoga group also reported improvement in memory, the report stated.

Relieves Anxiety and Improves Mood
Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) found yoga may be superior to other types of exercise for relieving anxiety and uplifting the mood. Their study compared gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) levels (which are low in those with depression and anxiety disorders) of those who practiced yoga to those who walked. Each group exercised three times a week, for an hour at a time, and participants brain’s were scanned with a magnetic resonance spectroscopic (MRS) before the study, and then before and after each hour-long session. Also, each person evaluated their mood at several stages throughout the study, the report stated.

Those who practiced yoga reported a more substantial decrease in anxiety, and more significant improvements in mood than those who walked, and over time, the positive changes were associated with higher GABA levels, according to Chris Streeter, M.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at Boston University School of Medicine.

Improve Women’s Libido
Sadie Nardini, the yoga instructor and co-owner of The Fierce Club in New York City, recommended “The Kneeling Core Plank” to help women improve their libido, explaining: “By working your pelvic floor muscles along with the glutes, waist, thighs, abs and arms, you’ll feel more like taking your clothes off, and then be even more glad you did,” she said in the article.