Earlier this year, Emma Seppala, PhD, associate director of Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education and a research psychologist at the the medical school, wrote on Scope about her work using breathing meditation to help veterans with PTSD. One of her studies, involving 21 male veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars who were taught a set of breathing techniques from the Sudarshan Kriya Yoga practice, has now been published.
A recent Stanford Report article provides more details on the research, which found that the breathing techniques "resulted in reduced PTSD symptoms, anxiety and respiration rate" among study participants. The piece also highlights Seppala's surprise that the meditation appeared to have a lasting effect:
"It is unusual to find the benefits of a very short intervention – one-week, 21 hours total – lasting one year later," she said. One year after the study, the participants' PTSD scores still remained low, suggesting that there had been long-lasting improvement.
When the scientists asked the veterans whether they had continued practicing at home, a few had but most had not. The data showed that whether or not they had practiced at home, it did not hinder meditation's long-term benefits.
One reason, Seppala suggested, is that Sudarshan Kriya yoga retrained the veterans' memories.
Before the breathing meditation training, participants reported re-experiencing traumatic memories frequently and intensely, Seppala said. Afterward, they reported that the traumatic memories no longer affected them as strongly or frequently.
The study appears in the in the Journal of Traumatic Stress.
Previously: The remarkable impact of yoga breathing for trauma, The promise of yoga-based treatments to help veterans with PTSD, Using mindfulness therapies to treat veterans’ PTSD, As soldiers return home, demand for psychologists with military experience grows, Stanford and other medical schools to increase training and research for PTSD, combat injuries and Can training soldiers to meditate combat PTSD?
Photo by Sebastien Wiertz
