Anxiety Reduction and Emotional Responding After a Session of Yoga

Background: Anxiety reductions after traditional forms of exercise are typically small and most likely to occur after high intensities. Whether yoga, an alternative mindful exercise that is commonly practiced at light-to-moderate intensities, reduces anxiety is poorly understood.

Methods: Here, we examined whether 20 minutes of self-directed Hatha Yoga practice would protect against elevated anxiety and alter emotional processing measured as valence-modification of the acoustic startle eye blink response during emotional picture viewing.

Results: Compared to equally timed sessions of leg cycling exercise at self-selected intensity and quiet rest, yoga practice mitigated the increase in state anxiety elicited by picture viewing and subsequently protected against elevated anxiety during a second exposure to the emotional scenes. These effects were large enough (about one-half standard deviation) that they could be clinically meaningful. Yoga also attenuated the magnitude of the acoustic startle response to both pleasant and unpleasant picture content, but anxiety reduction after yoga was independent of the changes in startle response.

Conclusion: The results extend past findings by showing that yoga practice mollifies anxiety elicited by emotionally arousing pictures without altering emotional processing.

Keywords: Acoustic startle reflex; Affect; Exercise; Mind body therapies; Psychophysiology