Kripalu Yoga for Military Veterans With PTSD: A Randomized Trial.

OBJECTIVES: This randomized controlled trial of yoga for military veterans and active duty personnel with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) evaluated the efficacy of a 10-week yoga intervention on PTSD. METHOD: Fifty-one participants were randomized into yoga or no-treatment assessment-only control groups. Primary outcome measures included questionnaires and the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale. RESULTS: Both yoga (n = 9) and control (n = 6) participants showed significant decreases in reexperiencing symptoms, with no significant between-group differences. Secondary within-group analyses of a self-selected wait-list yoga group (n = 7) showed significant reductions in PTSD symptoms after yoga participation, in contrast to their control group participation. Consistent with current literature regarding high rates of PTSD treatment dropout for veterans, this study faced challenges retaining participants across conditions. CONCLUSION: These results are consistent with recent literature indicating that yoga may have potential as a PTSD therapy in a veteran or military population. However, additional larger sample size trials are necessary to confirm this conclusion.

Yoga May Mitigate Decreases in High School Grades.

This study involves an exploratory examination of the effects of a 12-week school-based yoga intervention on changes in grade point average (GPA) in 9th and 10th grade students. Participants included 95 high school students who had registered for physical education (PE) in spring 2010. PE class sections were group randomized to receive either a yoga intervention or a PE-as-usual control condition. The yoga intervention took place during the entire third quarter and half of the fourth quarter of the school year, and quarterly GPA was collected via school records at the end of the school year. Results revealed a significant interaction between group and quarter suggesting that GPA differed between the yoga and control groups over time. Post hoc tests revealed that while both groups exhibited a general decline in GPA over the school year, the control group exhibited a significantly greater decline in GPA from quarter 1 to quarter 3 than the yoga group. Both groups showed equivalent declines in GPA in quarter 4 after the yoga intervention had ended. The results suggest that yoga may have a protective effect on academic performance by preventing declines in GPA; however these preventive effects may not persist once yoga practice is discontinued.