Fibromyalgia causes fatigue and chronic pain throughout the body – and there’s little the doctor can offer, other than painkillers. But now there’s something the sufferer can do, and it can make a big difference, a new study has discovered.
A yoga programme, which includes gentle poses, meditation and breathing exercises, can reduce the worst symptoms of fibromyalgia, researchers have discovered.
A research team from Oregon Health & Science University divided a group of 53 fibromyalgia sufferers into those either who took part in an eight-week yoga programme or who carried on with conventional therapy of medication and exercise.
The yoga group showed marked improvements in pain levels, fatigue, stiffness, poor sleep, depression, poor memory, anxiety and balance. Pain levels were reduced by 24 per cent, fatigue by 30 per cent and depression by 42 per cent.
(Source: Pain, 2010; 151: 530).
via Yoga helps fibromyalgia sufferers when doctors can’t | What Doctors Don’t Tell You.