Music and yoga for schizophrenia
The British Journal of Psychiatry reports a study whereby music therapy is helpful in easing the depression, anxiety and emotional withdrawal symptoms of schizophrenia.
Undertaken by British scientists in four hospitals, the study indicates that encouraging patients to express themselves through music helps them mitigate their symptoms.
Dr Mike Crawford, the author of the study says, “We have known for sometime that psychological treatments can help people with schizophrenia, but these have only been used when people are fairly stable”. The study establishes that music is quite effective in working with schizophrenics to give them relief.
About 1% of people in Britain and the US are affected by schizophrenia, which is marked by hallucinations, delusions, hearing voices and significant changes in the behaviour of the patients. The disease mostly affects the youngsters from their late teens to early 20s.
Amongst the conventional line of treatments, patients of schizophrenia are given antipsychotic drugs which work to ameliorate the symptoms. The drugs are known to have possible side effects like sexual dysfunction, increased risk of diabetes and weight gain.
The patients in the British study were administered music therapy over eight to 12 music sessions. Marked improvements in the symptoms of the patients were recorded.
Under the regime of Yoga we have had an experience of treating severe cases of chronic depression and quite a few among them suffering from early to late stage of schizophrenia.
Among the breathing exercises, called pranayama under the regime of yoga, Aalom Vilom was found to be most effective in bringing relief to the patients over a period of three to eight months.
It is not difficult to understand that the music therapy in the British study works on the same lines as the pranayama, which is known to increase the flow of endorphins, the “happy hormones”. Our own findings indicate that breathing exercises are effective in balancing your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which control the functioning of our vital organs, as an involuntary feature of our body. Such a balance is specially vital in achieving improvement in nervous conditions.
Add comment November 3rd, 2006 Written By: lalitgambhir