Last week I announced that instead of going to counseling I was going to go to yoga to try to treat depression. I came to this plan totally on my own, without doing any research. I just remembered how in the past I felt much better by doing yoga. Actually, I remembered one specific time. It was February of 2019. My father was gravely ill and reflecting on his prognosis wasn’t helpful, nor was the thought that in the long run all our our prognosises are the same. On top of it, Leo was being unhelpful, saying stuff like, “leave me alone I’m reading” and “You’re always depressed what does it matter?” The situation was desperate for sure.
It was in the dark February of 2018 that I decided to join the local studio.
This week, I did the same thing again. Returned, as they say, to the mat. Showing up for myself on the mat in an attempt to turn my mood around.
The answer to the question, did the yoga cure work, is yes. I am not in perfect condition … I did catch myself musing on making a list of people who don’t like me this afternoon … but only for two minutes. And by contrast, there have been at least a dozen times in the last three days when I thought “hey, life is so great, I can’t believe this.”
This is actually consistent with research.
I decided to read up online on the yoga cure for depression and found that my great discovery here wasn’t exactly a discovery. People have suggested this, researched it even, before. Of course, I don’t care if it works in research studies, I really just care if it works on me. Nevertheless, I feel vindicated. I went on, searching for more information on “yoga to treat depression.”
I traveled down my google hit list of sites, and I found this next page on YouTube. This is Yoga with Adriene and she had given us a fifteen minute yoga workout called, helpfully, “Yoga for Depression.” Apparently, looking at the video, Adriene has a nice little room where she does her yoga, with a wooden floor and calming plants, and she invites us to start by lying down and doing supported rest pose … hand to heart … I notice that she is wearing a nice modest yoga suit with a t-shirt and calm cool green yoga leggings. You can see a window beyond her, which shows foliage … she expresses her love for everyone who chooses her video.
As soon as I got done drafting this post, I did the workout with her. It’s only 15 minutes, and I would call the effort level extremely light compared to Hot 60 which is my go-to yoga class. But she did get to some deep bends, some deep breathing, and I did feel relaxed and ready for bed when I was done. Overall impression: You’ve got a friend in yoga with Adriene.
Next I went to check out my regular health website go-to, WebMD. Web MD allows that yoga may help with depression. However, “yoga doesn’t replace other types of depression or anxiety treatment which could include therapy and/or medication.” Well, you know those western medicine types. I guess the WebMD people haven’t considered the argument that going to too much therapy will turn you into Woody Allen if you don’t watch out. I read on down the Google list.
Next, for those who are too sophisticated for WebMD, is Harvard Health. Their report shows that yoga is good for mental health of all types. Harvard’s report also says that yoga “can affect mood by elevating levels of a brain chemical called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which is associated with better mood and decreased anxiety.” And a review of 15 studies on alternative methods to address depression and anxiety in “older adults” (no older adults in here but us chickens) yoga and listening to music were the most effective, but yoga *lasts longer*. Not that I don’t listen to music in the car, constantly.
Here is my Methodology for Yoga to Treat Depression
So the good news is, my plan worked. The not-as-thrilling news is that my discovery is, “Well, Obvio,” as the kids say. But I still feel a sense of achievement. Perhaps I should talk about what did I do? In the last seven days, I went to 60 minutes of hot yoga on Friday night and on Sunday afternoon, as well as on Wednesday night, and to a 60 minutes intermediate Vinyasa class on Saturday night. (The instructor at this class asked me and a man who was standing nearby “what are your plans for tonight?”
The guy said, “I don’t have any.” I said, “I went to yoga, isn’t that’s enough? The man gave me a look. I wasn’t sure what the look signified. Did he mean, “Yoga is not a thing to do on Saturday night?” Listen, Dude, for me it is. For me, this is about as exciting as my life gets. I didn’t mention that I was using yoga to treat depression, either.
Part of the reason why yoga to treat depression works for me is my perception of people who do yoga. You can not do yoga if you’re ugly or decrepit. Generally. So if you’re in the yoga studio, your negative self talk (you’re falling apart. You don’t have it anymore (or on a really bad day “you never had it in the first place”.) is disproved. The mirrors will show you that your body is still working and you still can get into the poses, which proves that you’re not dying. Yet. If you were you wouldn’t be able to finish the workout.
And Once you get over the Depression, Your Friends Want you to get on “The App”
Next: I went and got my hair done. The hairdresser started up again with the talk of “The App.” This is how that goes:
Her: “It’s time for you to get on the app.”
Me: “Ummm”
Her: “It’s fun. You just scroll through guys. You can do this at any time … then you can talk to them.”
Me: silently. (How can I explain to her that the idea of talking to strange men, even ones which have a picture available, fills me with dread? I don’t want to go fishing for dates I want … Ohhh … this is awful.)
Her: “Or how about calling an old boyfriend. Surely you have an old boyfriend …”
I feel like a hunted animal.
Time is wasting, she says. “You have to get over all your doubts and fears and TAKE ACTION … “
And I vascilate. I vascilate between vowing to take action, and shutting down and sliding back into depression. Surely there is a third way? (The Third Way, for those of you who’ve never heard of it, was something the Jesuits thought up after WWII and before Vatican II, where you could be not quite celibate and definitely not married, but, even though you had taken religious vows, you could still date … that’s what someone told me … maybe it was Leo … maybe I shouldn’t have believed him. There is no Third Way. I’ve been around this block before.)
I should accept, after all, that there is being alone and then there is being in a relationship. It’s time to at least go in a direction. Not at least going in a direction is choosing to slide back into depression. And I can’t beef up on the yoga any more, I can only go three or four nights a week. So I can’t get depressed *now.*
Next week: I take a closer look at The App.