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Yoga and Traditional Healing Methods in Mental Health

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Mental Health and Illness in the Rural World

Part of the book series: Mental Health and Illness Worldwide ((MHIW))

Abstract

Medications remain the primary approach for the treatment of most mental disorders in most centers around the world, with or without psychological interventions. Drug treatments have indeed helped many patients with psychiatric disorders, especially after the psychopharmacological revolution in the 1990s. However, there are significant limitations to current medications and psychological approaches that make persons with mental disorders seek non-pharmacological treatments as add-on or independent therapies, also known as traditional methods of healing or by the term “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM). This is even more pronounced in the developing countries, especially rural populations. The wide use of CAM approaches by patients has led clinicians and researchers to also explore the efficacy and evidence base for these interventions. The CAM approaches include whole alternative medical systems, mind-body therapies, biologically based therapies, energy-based therapies, and body-based manipulative therapies.

Mind-body therapies have been particularly in focus over the last two decades, with increasing evidence suggesting that these interventions are efficacious in several mental disorders. Among mind-body therapies, yoga-based therapies have emerged as an important therapeutic option. Clinical trials with yoga have been conducted in depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia, with promising results. While the evidence is preliminary, the available data suggest that yoga has distinct benefits in patients with these disorders, and these effects are mediated by certain neurobiological processes that may have been deranged in the disease. Yoga may correct the balance and is therefore therapeutic.

There is tremendous scope for scientific study of yoga and other traditional healing methods in mental health conditions. This chapter attempts to synthesize the available knowledge in this important area of health, particularly focusing on yoga and meditative practices.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge Dr. Sneha Karmani for her inputs to the chapter

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  1. NIMHANS Integrated Centre for Yoga, Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, Karnataka, India

    Shivarama Varambally & B. N. Gangadhar

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  1. Shivarama Varambally
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  2. B. N. Gangadhar
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Correspondence to B. N. Gangadhar .

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  1. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, Karnataka, India

    Santosh Kumar Chaturvedi

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Varambally, S., Gangadhar, B.N. (2020). Yoga and Traditional Healing Methods in Mental Health. In: Chaturvedi, S. (eds) Mental Health and Illness in the Rural World. Mental Health and Illness Worldwide. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2345-3_20

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