Alternative Therapies

Alternative therapies are called alternative because they offer treatment possibilities outside the conventional approaches of drug treatment or psychotherapy. They include a wide range of practices such as yoga, meditation, acupuncture, and herbal remedies. Over the past 25 years, yoga and meditation have become especially popular as treatment programmes for psychological distress.

Yoga is an ancient Indian technique detailed in the Ashtanga Yoga of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. As commonly understood today, the term 'yoga' can refer to only the asanas (body postures), or only the breathing practices (pranayama), or a combination of the two.

Meditation refers to the practice of focusing attention — on the breath, on an object, on a thought, or on a mantra. In Vipasana meditation, also called mindfulness-based meditation, there is no fixed object or thought to hold the attention. Instead, the person passively observes the various bodily sensations and thoughts that pass through their awareness.

The rapid breathing techniques used to induce hyperventilation, as in Sudarshana Kriya Yoga (SKY), have been found to be a beneficial, low-risk, low-cost adjunct to the treatment of several conditions. These include stress, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, stress-related medical illnesses, substance abuse, and the rehabilitation of criminal offenders. SKY has also been used as a public health intervention technique to alleviate PTSD in survivors of mass disasters.

Yoga techniques enhance well-being, mood, attention, mental focus, and stress tolerance. To maximise these benefits, proper training by a skilled teacher and a 30-minute practice every day are recommended.

Research conducted at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), India, has shown that SKY reduces depression. Additionally, alcoholic patients who practice SKY have shown reduced depression and stress levels.

Insomnia is treated with yoga. Yoga reduces the time it takes to fall asleep and improves the quality of sleep. …