Most people will be exposed to a traumatic event at some point in their lives, either directly or indirectly. In one global survey by the World Health Organization, 70 percent of people had experienced at least one such event, with an average of three per person.
This can include anything from physical abuse or sexual abuse to witnessing violence or being a child of divorce. These kinds of trauma exposures are linked to a number of physical and mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), increased illicit drug use, inflammation and cardiovascular disease.
In the Western world, treatment for trauma often involves a combination of psychotherapy and medication. While cognitive-based therapies are the “gold standard” treatment for trauma, people who have experienced trauma may not be comfortable with this type of therapy. They may also drop out of treatment before they start to see benefits.
That’s why some treatment centers offer mindfulness-based interventions for trauma alongside traditional psychotherapy. This includes interventions adapted from Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, as well as programs that use yoga for trauma recovery.
MBSR and other mindfulness programs are based on Buddhist philosophy. These programs train people to focus their attention on the present moment, while cultivating compassion without judgment. Similarly, the eight limbs of yoga, as described in the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali includes a heavy emphasis on focusing the mind, with the ultimate goal of meditative absorption (samadhi).
While mindfulness-based and yoga programs are already offered as treatments for trauma — either alone or alongside traditional psychotherapy — their effectiveness is still being studied by scientists. In a recent paper in the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, researchers from Australia reviewed the existing research to get a sense of the effectiveness of mindfulness and yoga for trauma recovery.
Research on Mindfulness and Yoga for Trauma Recovery
The researchers looked at all of the studies that had been published to date, and narrowed it down to 24 higher-quality studies. They then pooled the data from these studies together, in what’s known as a meta-analysis.
Overall, the researchers found that mindfulness and yoga both had moderate benefits for people with trauma, with a place for them alongside traditional treatments for trauma. “Mindfulness, yoga, and integrative exercise interventions are effective adjuncts to clinical programs targeting trauma-exposed people,” they wrote.
However, the results varied quite a bit among the studies. The researchers said that this might be due to the different types of trauma experienced by people in the studies or the complexities of the interventions themselves.
Studies that included integrative exercise programs were also included in the meta-analysis. This type of program combines aerobic and resistance exercise with mindfulness principles. The meta-analysis showed a stronger overall effect for these types of interventions, but there were only two of these studies.
Many of the mindfulness and yoga studies lacked a control group, a comparison group that doesn’t participate in the intervention. Including a control group in the study allows researchers to see how much of an effect a treatment has, and whether the results are real or just due to random chance.
The researchers also looked at the duration of the interventions used. They found that the sweet spot for program length was eight to nine weeks. Those that lasted less were not effective and those that lasted longer were less effective.
There was also no difference between programs that had sessions that lasted longer than 75 minutes compared to those with shorter sessions. And programs that didn’t include a retreat of some kind provided similar benefits as those that did.
While there appears to be some benefits of mindfulness and yoga for trauma recovery, the researchers wrote that more research is needed. They suggest that future studies include control groups and run for eight weeks with one hour-long session per week.
While the goal of these interventions is to treat trauma, they do not necessarily need to address the trauma directly, although they should be mindful of it. “The intervention might be trauma-informed, but may not need to be trauma-specific,” wrote the authors.
