Imagine silence and heat so oppressive that you’re told the goal of your first class is just to stay in the room all 90 minutes. Twenty-six postures are repeated twice on each side of your body. You are sweating so much that puddles form beneath you. None of this sounds particularly therapeutic, especially if you’re experiencing depression symptoms, but researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School have shown the opposite.

In a randomized control trial, the practice called Hot26, or Bikram Yoga, served as a treatment for roughly thirty patients with moderate to severe depression. Over the course of 8 weeks, patients in the yoga-treatment group averaged roughly 10 classes each, with one class lasting 90 minutes long, conducted in 105 F degree heat. More than half of the yoga-treatment group demonstrated a decrease in depression symptoms by at least 50% on the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology scale, compared to only 6.3% in the control group. The decrease in depression symptoms for yoga-treated individuals occurred in tandem with pre-existing medical and psychotherapy treatments. Similar use of medical and psychotherapeutic interventions were seen in the control group, yet the improvement in symptoms remained much lower. All together, this study contributes to the ever-expanding wealth of knowledge concerning depression treatment best practices. 

Despite the exciting results of this study, further research is needed to to disentangle the therapeutic benefits of heat versus the specific yoga postures featured in the Hot26 practice. Prior studies have shown decreased depression symptoms in response to hyperthermia, but there is also some evidence that yoga practice at room temperature provides some benefit. Heated yoga may provide a pivotal treatment for individuals experiencing major depressive disorder who are unwilling or unable to use traditional medical and psychotherapeutic interventions.

This study was led by Maren Nyer, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Yoga Studies at the Depression Clinical and Research Program.

Corresponding Author: Nina C. Benites

Press article: Harvard study: Hot yoga may help ease depression (Harvard Health Publishing)

Research article:  A Randomized Controlled Trial of Community-Delivered Heated Hatha Yoga for Moderate-to-Severe Depression (Journal of Clinical Psychiatry)

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