After generic drugs, it is generic yoga now

KOCHI: National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences (Nimhans) – appointed by the Union ministry of health to study the mental health status in India – has come up with a ‘generic’ yoga module for persons with mental illness. It has developed a yoga module for anxiety disorder, depression, mild cognitive impairment, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), Parkinson’s and schizophrenia patients.
It focusses on yoga in the form of meditation, postures, breathing techniques and relaxation exercises, besides the number of rounds that one needs to practise each exercise and the amount of time a person with specific mental health condition should spend on yoga.However, they are clear that the generic module is not meant for self-learning and ‘needs to be performed under guidance of a trained yoga therapist’.
“Just like one needs to take only prescribed medicines in mental illness cases, in the same manner yoga should be illness-specific and targeted. Therefore, a generic manual is essential and it should be taught by a yoga teacher only. We completely discourage patients from doing yoga by self,” said Dr Shivarama Varambally, additional professor, department of psychiatry and consultant, Nimhans Integrated Centre for Yoga.
A countrywide study by Nimhans showed that at least 13.7% (projected figure) of India’s general population was suffering from a variety of mental illnesses; and 10.6% of this lot needed immediate intervention. In all, nearly 150 million Indians are in a need of active medical intervention. In Kerala, one in eight persons, that is 12.43% of the population, require psychiatric intervention. Around 9% , belonging to different age groups, are suffering from depression, said a recent survey.
With Nimhans experience showing that yoga has positive impact on patients with mental illness, they contacted 40 hospitals in India to send their nurses for training so that yoga can be integrated into the mental health programme. Only two hospitals responded, added Dr Varambally. Now they are trying to get more stakeholders together next September to discuss yoga traditions and develop a generic yoga module to approach mental health that will be accepted by everyone.
Psychiatrists admitted that such a module would be really helpful. “Every aspect of yoga is not suitable for all. It is important to know this, as yoga has psychological impact that leads to long-term personality changes and neurobiological changes leading to social changes,” said Indian Psychiatric Society’s nonpharmacological interventions task force national chairman Dr Philip John. Psychiatrist at AIMS, Kochi, Dr N Dinesh said: “Anxiety and depression leads to breakdown in patients that needs to be treated initially with medicines. When they respond to medicines, we slowly shift to yoga. With regular yoga, we are able to get good results and we reduce the medicine dose.”
However, there are critics too. “Yoga is just a supportive treatment like exercise. There is no concrete evidence to show that yoga is superior to regular exercise. Since yoga has cultural acceptance and Centre is pumping in a lot of money, everyone is talking about it,” said secretary of state mental health authority Dr Jayaprakash KP.