Yoga Breathing Exercises and Relaxation Effect on Depression in Elderly women

Abstract

Depression is one of the most common psychiatric (psychological) disorders and the most common risk for suicide in the elderly which has been the subject of many studies by researchers. Hence, this investigation aims to study the effect of a course of Yoga exercises on depression in elderly women. Present study is semi-experimental with pre-test and post-test and follow-up design. The statistical society of the study consisted of all elderly women of Shahrekord. The study sample included 30 elderly depressed women aged 60 to 85 who had the required criteria for the investigation and were selected purposefully for this study. They were divided into two groups randomly, that is experiment group (15) and control group (15). Beck Depression Questionnaire was used as a data collection tool in this research. The experimental group members were trained for 3 sessions (45- 70 min) per week for 8 weeks under the supervision of a specialist Yoga coach. After one month, the follow-up test was conducted. Multivariate covariance analysis was used to study the study hypothesis. After eight weeks of breathing and relaxation Yoga exercises, results revealed that the difference in the scores of the experiment and control groups in post-test stage (p= 0.001) and follow-up stage (p= 0.001) was significant. According to the findings of this study, It could be said that the breathing and relaxation exercises of Yoga could be used as a complementary treatment for reducing depression in the elderly women.

Keywords

• breathing exercises
• relaxation
• yoga
• depression
• elderliness