Heated yoga may reduce depression in adults | Hacker News Reader

Heated yoga may reduce depression in adults

news.harvard.edu

62 pointsnomilk59 comments

Moving the body around helps a lot with depression. I wish the article would compare it with other forms of exercise.

In the lifting world there's a common meme that goes something like "moving heavy thing make sad voice go away".

Yeah I’ve started cycling at least 5 miles every day and it’s very clear how quickly a bike ride will lift my mood. If things are bad the lift won’t last all day but it helps a lot.

Yes they buried the caveats at the very end of the article. They don’t know whether effects are specific to hot yoga or exercise in general.

My experience is that 30 mins of vigorous exercise at least 3 days per week has huge benefits on overall wellbeing - including mental health. The caveat there is that diet has to be tuned to support your level of activity. If you are exercising and not eating enough, low blood sugar can bring on the bad feels / thoughts.

Can you expand the "low blood sugar can bring on the bad feels / thoughts" ? Are there studies about this ?

A quick search on tells me there are. I am speaking from personal experience. If I do an intense workout and don’t eat within the next few hours I get anxious and depressed.

Took me a while to realize that diet was the culprit; but after a lot of self experimentation I am 100 percent certain.

It has to be highly personal, I cannot eat after a gym session, but I feel better than ever. I often train fasted and stay fasted until my evening meal

I am the same, morning workout with protein shake then evening meal. Everyone is unique.

The Bikram worked for me and that was back in 2010-11. Then got in to Yoga multiple sessions per week 2011-2018. I now run and long runs concentrating on what I'm doing and feeling and the whole mechanics and performance - is very therapeutic and great for body as well. I use 80/20 method for those who are interested. I have had only 3 meltdowns in last 5 years and only one multi-day extended "dark" period.

tbf I'd guess that bikram also benefits from the heat stress element, like sauna. Which is basically "free" cardio.

I'd also bet that it synergises well with yoga, as yoga is a decent mechanism for encouraging blood flow throughout the body.

I love lifting and think there are some really great elements. While ego lifting is bad, lifting a number is such a strong personal development feedback loop for most people but it's not for everyone: my partner is scared to get big, my mum and brother currently are nursing various MSK issues and can't really lift safely without serious modifications that need supervision. Meanwhile yoga, or better baduanjin (qigong) are far more accessible systems and bikram is a nice way to passively introduce extra challenge to the body and mind.

FYI, for anyone interested in learning Bikram, this book (by Bikram himself) is amazing: https://www.amazon.com/Bikram-Yoga-Radiant-Personal-Fulfillm...

No it’s “lift heavy stone, make sad head voice quiet”

It would be interesting indeed.

I suspect hot yoga would still produce comparably better results.

The reason is that it doesn't include only moving body around but things like breathing, stretching, compression, intense sweating etc on top of intensive workout. It gives subjective impression of positively affecting organs, lymphatic system, skin, hair, mind, circulation etc. - the whole body basically.

“Being placed on a waitlist may increase depression in adults.“

I did it once. It certainly does make life look brighter once you're no longer trying to do a downward dog with your own sweat running into your eyes.

It's like my favourite metaphor for hiking.

There's two monkeys in a cage. One monkey starts repeatedly hitting his head against the bars. Bang. Bang. Bang...

...the other monkey, puzzled, asks why he's doing that.

The first monkey pauses, and turns towards him.

"BECAUSE IT FEELS SO GOOD WHEN I STOP."

To other folks reading this: like any sustained practice, you're going to need to do it more than once.

Come back to this after a couple months of sustained practice and maybe you'll have a different perspective.

Oh, I'm an avid hiker, hence the metaphor.

I can see how it would be a great workout once you were used to it.

To other folks reading this: what you’re witnessing above is someone missing the joke.

Come back to this after considering other self deprecating jokes about activities told by people who participate in them. You’ll find they come from more leisurely sports like golf to more intense ones like marathons.

People find that humor can create a fun “in group” effect from the “why are we doing this absurd thing?” joking.

Love that metaphore, thanks :)

Bikram routine doesn't include downward dog posture.

You'd have to try at least 20 - 30 sessions not spread in time too much to make any kind of attempts at judgement.

First class will feel over intense (I thought I'm going to have heart attack), but it gets better quite quickly and it's great to see your own progress every class.

There is a sweet spot somewhere around 80-90% of your "max I can do" that can keep you through the class without feeling of being in torture chamber. The nob is quite flexible between simply standing or even lying down and doing maximum effort.

As someone who has consistently worked out 3 to 4 time a week for many years I believe and of course have heard many people speak to all the positive effects of exercise. I think what's interesting after doing it for so long and it being a normal part of my life that it doesn't really have the same benefits it once did.

I think there is something to doing unique things and it taking you out of your comfort zone. For instance in this case I could see hot yoga being vastly different than my typical workouts and that having a positive impact on my moods more so than my typical workout. I think it might be something that would be interesting to study, because while having better cardio and the endorphins that are generated from a good workout do make you feel better I have to imagine just as important for better moods is the fact that you are improving yourself in a way that takes you out of what might be a routine that you associate with depression or negative moods, which I think we all cycle through at points in our lives. Shaking things up seems to be important I guess is what I'm saying.

well, try not working out for 4 weeks and see how much worse you'll feel. you just have good baseline satisfactory-ness levels by now

From my experience effects are longer lasting than 4 weeks, you'd have to stop for 1 to 3 years, you'd still be at better baseline if you haven't done it at all but you'll be able to notice it at mental level. Of course smoking, not moving at all covid style, drinking, overeating and trashing your sleeping pattern will all help with depression if you want to achieve it faster.

no way thats true, especially for strength training. it takes about 2 weeks of not training to feel like a packet of jelly. at least if you're like me and sit on the computer most of the day

Same here, a week of at most, after that I feel useless, and the longer you wait the harder it gets to get back into hit.

The best is to keep the momentum, making it part of your routine removes the willpower from the equation

100%. Strength training is one of those things I've come to think of as body maintenance more than actually an athletic performance thing. Believe it to be equally if not more important than cardio

I found playing team sports competitively does more for me mentally than solo exercise. I realized this while in uni/college, playing intramural sports which were competitive but we weren't stupid competitive. I always felt great afterwards, even when we lost. I didn't get the same effect from jogging/lifting on my own.

Probably also thanks to the social interactions with your teammates. You socialise more, chat more, laugh more and all that makes our ape brain happier ig

I lived with half of my teammates at the time, so I don't think it's as simple as saying it's due to the social interaction. When it's competitive the entire focus is on winning. Sure you have some chuckles in the down time, but there's also plenty of irritation/frustration mixed in. We gave it our all and let each other know when we screwed up and our opinions on how we needed to fix it.

A better study would be:

1) Control group with nothing (the 'waitlist' group) in this study

2) Hot Yoga

3) Hot, no yoga (sauna?)

4) Yoga, no hot

5) Other cardio/weight training

edit: not sure I'm being snarky enough. This study is worthless, anyone familiar with depression would have predicted the group with any exercise-related intervention would do much better than the control.

Great! That would take only about 200 subjects. Though I'm sure you'd rather have a more meaningful sample size, so let's say 2,000 subjects.

You'll need to recruit therapists to evaluate them all, before and after. That shouldn't cost more than about a million dollars or so.

I'm pretty sure there are also doctors involved at various points in the process. I imagine you'll want medical checks before and after, just to make sure nobody dies on your watch. That shouldn't cost more than another million or so.

Let's get applying for grants!

This 'study' is little more than an ad for hot yoga. There's zero reason to think, given the article and study, that there's anything specific about hot yoga that's doing the work here.

So, yes, wait until you can actually do useful research, instead of running forward with bullshit. That doesn't always mean 2000 subjects and millions of dollars, but actually having a useful and novel result would be a nice change.

They could have even compared the results against the (many) replicated studies on exercise and its effectiveness in reducing depression. Or the (few) studies on sauna usage.

So should we instead do smaller projects $150k at a time until we get to $1 million total spent and have proven nothing?

Proper studies are expensive so let's just don't do it. - HN

By the way, proper education, proper medical research, proper workplace safety... are all expensive. Big news I know.

I can’t believe there isn’t a single mention of this thread of the “father” of heated yoga, Bikram Chowdry: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikram_Choudhury

In summary, the guy was a scamming quack, and his most prominent accomplishments include extensive molestation and rape. Never forget his evil.

Another confounding factor: getting out and doing something in a group with other people. Sitting on a waitlist for two weeks gives ample opportunity to sit at home and stew. Having the impetus to do something can have a big effect on its own.

Anecdatum: I was absolutely hot and miserable in the one session trying out hot yoga. I had to get out midway because my head was swimming with the heat and humidity, which was made worse by the owner's dog giving me a friendly lick. Adorable dog and not his fault, but the last thing I wanted was anything hot and wet coming near me!

I grew up in India and have done yoga in the summer, but everything about doing it indoors in stale hot humid air was awful.

Hmm maybe, cause working out sure didn't work AT ALL for me, if anything it made things worse "another hope fades away".

I was in that boat. I went on a 'hiking' trip (day hikes, nights in a hotel) for a week. Waterfalls and/or ((mountain+hill)/2)-top vistas on each trail. So far I'm 2 weeks without my daily 4am session of involuntary absolute despondency.

Worth a try if you can swing it.

I will be interested in results of a control group which did 90 minutes of weight training and cardio under similar conditions.

Right. Heated yoga sounds so nice, I feel like doing exercise or even just “doing nice things with a group” could have beneficial effects. It doesn’t mean heated yoga isn’t good, just that the takeaway could be more broad.

Have you ever tried heated yoga? Apparently it is very popular in Houston -- as if the oppressive heat outdoors wasn’t enough.

I’ve not tried it but I’d like to.

I found it rather unpleasant, but I only did it once. Maybe I'd get used to it. But 90 minutes of yoga is a lot when you're not used to it. (And I say that as a marathon runner who regularly exercises much longer, but different skills.)

90 minutes does sound like a lot!

Bikram has 26 postures but only 12 are standing, the rest is on the floor/easier interleaved with relaxation by lying down doing nothing.

First class will fill over intense, it gets easier really quickly and the feel of progress is very motivating.

I'm interested in what they told the people they put on the wait list.

I could imagine a scenario where their control group could have actually been motivated to not improve during that time because they wanted to participate in the trial.

Wait... Almost every kind of sport and exercise has an effect on depression. How did they control for that? Besides, if I read "may" and "yoga" in the same sentence, all my alarm bells go off. Not speaking about against yoga as such, but the way the wester reappropriates it for everything is highly pseudoscientific. You're 30-something, a bit alternatively oriented, and want to "work with people"? Chances are you either work as a yoga-"teacher" or you give massages. At least that is the trend around where I live, since roughyl 20 years.

So depressed people either went into a hot room tightly packed with fit people stripping down and contorting their sweat-covered bodies, while they followed along and learned a new skill, or they did absolutely nothing.

Groundbreaking research.

Maybe depression isn’t just unexplained chemical imbalance, and there really is something wrong with the way people are living.

As a side note, and from personal experience, repeated cycles of sauna and cold plunge does wonders for the well-being.

I can concur. Same results for myself starting into yoga on doing 1-2 Bikram sessions per week. Life saver. Literally.

In addition to the comments proposing some other kind of exercise as a control group, I’d want to see whether “being prescribed something but then being waitlisted“ prolongs depressive symptoms compared to, say, “being prescribed and receiving {placebo intervention}”. Our health care system is, itself, crazy making.

TIL each Yoga move is based on an animal, the linkage between an animal and the human has some clear meaning, the sutras apparently don't mention anything to do with evolution of the body, but more of the soul through the phases of the animal kingdom.

There are studies out that say sauna use 4-7 times a week 19+ min at > 175F reduces all-cause mortality. Maybe from heat shock proteins?

I would imagine heat + yoga will also increase your core body temperature and may do the same kinds of things. plus exercise.

Tired of heavy hitter submitters dishing-out half-baked research to HackerNews

Not the heat, not the yoga, but “doing sports and moving” reduces depression.

So it could have been “bouldering may reduce depression” or even “squash may reduce depression”.

Why? 1) You move. 2) You can’t do social media at the same time.

tl;dr get out, move, stop sitting on the couch and stop social media.

Yeah, I was surprised to see this on hacker news. I mean it’s a great study and it’s good to know that heated yoga also works, but when I had my run in with depression (which turned out to be ADHD and stress) one of the key things in the recovery program was exercise. Specifically it was to talk walks in one of our forests. So while it’s definitely good to broaden the range or activities that are proven to reduce depression through science, it’s also a little… what is the word for something that is obvious because it’s been proven many times before?

I do find it interesting that they only focused on heather yoga and non-action. I get that it’s about resources, but given that we already know that “getting out there to exercise” works it seems a little strange to not compare with different sorts of activities. It would be much more interesting to me if regular? Yoga also worked as I’m not too interested in doing heathers yoga but have considered the regular stuff. I’ll probably end up climbing though since we have a climbing hall nearby and my daughter is a regular monkey so we can probably go together.

We all know it's just:

1. eating well

2. exercising well

3. sleeping well

But it doesn't mean that one form or exercise can't be more effective than the other.

Intense sweating and higher cardio through heat, stretching, compression etc. on top of exercise may have better effect on ie. lymphatic system, circulation etc.

Is this something that really received funding and had actual adult scientists researching it?

I have a few hypotheses I'd like to explore with some of that money

1. Hot Soup alleviates hunger. If true, Hot soup may be a useful tool in the fight against hunger. Future research may explore other types of food.

2. Wool jackets reduce chances of hypothermia. Unsure about other types of clothing. Future research may explore the effects of temperature differentials and thermodynamics (but that sounds hard so let's try a few more types of clothing first)

Hot yoga is occasionally ok. If you have a daily practice, it is better to build heat from within

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