New Delhi, January 10 (IANS). According to a new study, yoga can help in faster recovery from opioid withdrawal symptoms, while also improving sleep quality and providing pain relief.
In this randomized clinical trial published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, researchers from India’s National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, and Harvard Medical School studied 59 male participants who were suffering from opioid use disorder.
Those in the yoga group were given a 45-minute yoga session along with standard buprenorphine treatment, while the control group was given only the medication. Results showed that the yoga group recovered from withdrawal 4.4 times faster (median 5 days vs. 9 days).
“In this trial, yoga significantly improved opioid withdrawal recovery,” said Suddala Gautam of the Department of Integrative Medicine, NIMHANS.
Opioid use disorder (OUD), characterized by recurrent opioid use, causes serious physical, psychological, and social problems. This is a major global public health challenge.
There are some problems when quitting opioids. Physical symptoms such as diarrhea, insomnia, fever, pain, anxiety, and depression emerge, and autonomic symptoms such as dilated pupils, runny nose, goosebumps, loss of appetite, yawning, nausea, vomiting, and sweating.
Yoga improved heart rate variability (HRV), significantly reduced anxiety, reduced the time it took to fall asleep by 61 minutes, and provided pain relief.
Researchers believe that yoga balances the parasympathetic nervous system, which contributes 23 percent to reducing withdrawal symptoms.
In 2022, approximately 60 million people worldwide used opioids without medical treatment. In India, a 2019 national survey showed that opioid use was 2.1 percent common.
This study offers a cheap and easily accessible option for countries struggling with the opioid crisis. Experts say that including yoga in the treatment protocol can reduce the relapse rate.
–IANS
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