Yoga Reduces Chronic Pain in Female Fibromyalgia Patients

According to the conclusions of a new scientific research, it would appear that female patients who have been diagnosed with a disease called fibromyalgia experience a reduction in their chronic pain levels if they practice yoga.

This form of exercise can apparently quell some of the pain that constantly haunts these women. The condition itself is characterized as a medical disorder that features widespread pain and a type of heightened and painful response to pressure called allodynia.

In addition to pain, other telltale symptoms are debilitating fatigue, sleep disturbance, and joint stiffness, researchers say. Patients suffering from this disorder are in a great deal of pain nearly all the time, and have to take special medication in order to alleviate the symptoms.

In the new research, experts were very interested in learning more about the psychological and physical effects of practicing yoga under these circumstances. The team paid special attention to the levels of the stress hormone cortisol the bodies of women they tested displayed.

Past studies have linked higher levels of the chemical cortisol to more stress, so measurements of cortisol concentrations are now one of the main tests used to check a person's stress level.

Fibromyalgia – and the symptoms that accompany it – naturally create a lot of stress on the body, by battering the brain with pain stimuli at all times. Interestingly enough, the condition also appears to contribute to lowering the levels of cortisol in the body.

In other words, it could be that the cortisol deficiency that characterizes the disease may contribute to stress sensitivity, fatigue, and pain. However, after practicing two sessions of hatha yoga per week for 8 weeks, patients displayed a much higher cortisol level.

Before and after the study began, researchers measured concentrations of the chemical in the saliva of test participants. “Ideally, our cortisol levels peak about 30-40 minutes after we get up in the morning and decline throughout the day until we’re ready to go to sleep,” Kathryn Curtis explains.

“The secretion of the hormone, cortisol, is dysregulated in women with fibromyalgia,” adds the expert, who is also the lead author of the study. A paper detailing the findings appears in the latest issue of the medical Journal of Pain Research.

“Hatha yoga promotes physical relaxation by decreasing activity of the sympathetic nervous system, which lowers heart rate and increases breath volume. We believe this in turn has a positive effect on the HPA axis,” Curtis adds, quoted by PsychCentral.

HPA is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, on which cortisol acts in response to stress.

In the study, “we saw [participants'] levels of mindfulness increase – they were better able to detach from their psychological experience of pain,” Curtis concldues.