Product Description

Take the natural path to mental wellness

More than 25 million Americans are treated with antidepressants each year, at a cost in excess of $50 billion. But the side effects of popular prescription drugs may seem nearly as depressing as the symptoms they’re meant to treat. Veteran yoga instructor Amy Weintraub offers a better solution—one that taps the scientifically proven link between yoga and emotional well-being as well as the beauty of ancient approaches to inner peace.

Addressing a range of diagnoses, including dysthymia, anxiety-based depression, and bipolar disorder, Yoga for Depression reveals why specific postures, breathing practices, and meditation techniques can ease suffering and release life’s traumas and losses. Weintraub also reflects on her own experience with severe depression, from which she recovered through immersing herself in a daily yoga routine.
Yoga for Depression is the first yoga book devoted exclusively to the treatment of these debilitating conditions. Amy Weintraub will help readers see their suffering and themselves in a vibrant new light.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #58416 in Books
• Brand: Yoga.com
• Published on: 2003-12-23
• Released on: 2003-12-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Features

• A godsend: beautifully written, medically accurate, and very practical.-Christiane Northrup, M.D.
• Paperback book with 285 useful pages by Amy Weintraub.

From Publishers Weekly
Long-time yoga teacher and writer Weintraub offers readers yoga as an alternative to antidepressants, which, she explains, treat the symptoms of the problem but not the whole person. By contrast, "a daily practice of yoga will bring your physical body and your emotional body into balance, restoring a sense of well-being and energy." Weaving in her own triumphant story and those of her students, Weintraub seems to beg readers to give yoga a chance to relieve their suffering. She constructs a convincing, if at times plodding, case by reviewing the medical evidence, such as the practice's impact on stress levels and the healing principles of yoga, which include developing both your energy and your self-awareness. Weintraub also discusses the roles of breathing and meditation, and, most interestingly, explains how holding certain poses can help release trauma that may be "stored" in the body. Although descriptions and pictures of specific stretches, poses and breathing exercises are scattered throughout, Weintraub encourages readers to use the book as a guide and to find a class taught by a qualified yoga instructor. Perhaps some readers will be motivated to do so because of the author's enthusiasm and well-researched material. But the New Age language-"Ishvara-pranidhana can mean that separations between you and your partner may begin to dissolve so that you experience the wholeness of sacred union with the divine through your partner"-might discourage others.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Depression has become a worldwide epidemic; in the U.S. alone more than 17 million Americans are diagnosed with clinical depression each year. Weintraub makes a viable case for incorporating yoga in the treatment of depression. A writer and yoga teacher, she suffered from debilitating chronic depression and spent many years on antidepressant medications. Through yoga, Weintraub was able to gradually go off medication, and she has been free of a recurrence of depression for more than 15 years. Through her own story and the stories of others, she defines and describes various types of depression, anxiety, and other emotional disorders, and offers yoga techniques for their treatment. Beyond anecdotal evidence, Weintraub presents summaries of several scientific studies that show that various yoga techniques have measurable effects on relieving depression for people all over the world. Jane Tuma
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
?Yoga for Depression is a godsend: beautifully written, medically accurate, and very practical. I highly recommend it!?
--Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of Women?s Bodies, Women?s Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause

?This is a book about integrating the mind and the body, about using movement to mend oneself; in a world obsessed with psychopharmacology, reading it was a refreshing reminder that, in some cases, the tools we have to cure depression reside not in a pill, but in our own bodies, if we are willing to try.?
--Lauren Slater, author of Prozac Diary and Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir

??A sensitive, intelligent, painstaking exploration of the deeper psychospiritual issues that make up the complex experience of depression. That in itself would be a significant contribution, but Yoga for Depression also offers a brilliant illumination of how the ancient wisdom of the yogic tradition can penetrate the often intractable challenges of depression?.
--Phil Catalfo, Yoga Journal, January/February 2004

?In the compassionate voice of someone who definitely knows the territory of depression, Amy Weintraub presents Yoga science and personal stories, research results and poetry, and practice instructions that are genuinely interesting in this very readable book that is both comprehensive and totally inspiring.?
--Sylvia Boorstein, author of That?s Funny You Don?t Look Like a Buddhist and It?s Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

"Amy Weintraub's work is some of the most important in our world today for helping humanity understand more deeply the significance of the mind-body connection. Her insights are inspirational for yoga teachers and all readers. Her in-depth understanding of her subject is an important basis for personal, as well as societal transformation."
--Rama Jyoti Vernon, Founder, American Yoga College

?This is truly a beautifully written encyclopedia of yoga for depression. It is rare to find such a generous soul, willing to embrace all approaches to yoga, unbiased and yet having intelligent discernment and advice for those searching for help. Amy offers many guidelines and solutions through yoga, to both those who suffer from depression and to yoga teachers working with them.?
--Angela Farmer, internationally-known master yoga teacher -- Review

Customer Reviews

Yoga for Depression
As a psychotherapist who also practices yoga, I was immediately drawn to this book in my continuing search for ways to integrate yoga into therapy. Although I enjoyed reading the book, I'm not too sure that I came away with anything practical that I would add to my professional work other than to say that it appears that yoga can help some people recover from depression and bipolar disorder some of the time.

The author begins by telling the story of her own depression and treatment with medication which was ineffective until she began taking classes at a Kripalu Center in 1989. The yoga helped resolve her problems and she subsequently became a teacher in Tucson, AZ. Later in the book, she writes about how she used meditation and yoga to deal with her own breast cancer crisis which required some courageous self-disclosure on her part. I admire the fact that she "walks it like she talks it."

It's important to note that this book focuses more on yoga philosophy and is not a practice book. At the end of each chapter, the author demonstrates several experiential exercises, but these are mostly kriyas and pranayamas. There is not attempt to outline a particular sequence of postures that one should practice. She lists other resources that the student can access and highly recommends an experienced teacher.

I was disappointed of her summary of scientific evidence relating to yoga and depression, most of which appeared to be derived from second hand sources rather than the primary journal articles themselves. I am quite interested in this topic, and I will try to track down some of her sources later on. Much of the research has appeared in Indian journals and might not be accessible to a Western reader. However, as "scholar-in-residence" at the Kripalu Center during the writing of the book, she might have been able to get some help with this. Mostly she told anecdotal stories which, while they might be interesting and demonstrative, are not compelling in the scientific sense.

Most interesting to me was her differentiating styles or schools of yoga according to three categories. She cites the "basic instruction" found in Chapter Two of Patangali's Yoga Sutras as "Union in Action," which, to my way of thinking, is a state of mindfulness or being in the flow. This Union in Action rests on a tripod of willful practice (tapas), self-observation (svadhyaya) and surrender (Ishvrara-parnidhana). One might question her translation of these terms. She notes that different systems of yoga present different "doorways" through which one can enter, each of which takes one to the same destination, "total union."

As an example of the tapas doorway, she gives Iyengar Yoga with it's emphasis on correct alignment and "purity of practice" which bridge the gap between the physical and mental spheres and bring relief from "soothing and calming the emotions through physical practice." Sounds good, but again the support is anecdotal.

As an example of the svadhyaya doorway, she cites Viniyoga with it's emphasis on studying one's self to discover imbalances and then using yoga techniques to bring oneself back into balance. For example, someone with anxiety based depression (rajasic) would practice langhana techniques to calm and purify while a person suffering from Dysthymia (tamasic) would practice brahmana techniques to nourish, build and energize. This approach has an inherent logic that appeals to my way of thinking. Also, my present teacher is from a tradition similar to this where balance is the primary object of practice.

As an example of Ishvara-pranidhana, she uses her own practice of Kripalu and it's emphasis on spontaneous movements and surrender to the flow of energy in the body through long holding of postures. I plan to take some classes from a teacher in this tradition soon, so I will find out more about this approach in the near future. The idea of surrender and acceptance resonate nicely with my more Buddhist way of approaching the world.

The author devotes an entire chapter to the Art of Living program and the practice of Sudharshan Kriya, a breathing technique. She cites research results from this group proving it's effectiveness against depression, but, again, she does not include enough information to allow the reader to evaluate these claims. She says, "Time after time, controlled studies . . . " have shown a 73% recovery rate in hospitalized depressed patients." However, she provides no reference to where the reader might find the articles describing how these results were derived nor does she include details about how the research was conducted. She does not give instructions on Sudharshan Kriya as it seems to be owned by the Art of Living group.

Overall, I would recommend this book for it's explication of the way various yoga methods can be applied to depression, trauma and anxiety. I also liked the attempt to categorize the various schools of yoga, and I learned more about each of them. As far as any practical application, I wish the author had proposed a more structured approach to different syndromes and explicated what to do about them. I am still awaiting the book, outside of any particular school, that says, "If you have this symptom, do this. If you have that symptom, do that." Even better would be a complete workout designed to address anxiety and depression in the context of a full routine. Perhaps as the Westernization of yoga continues, such a manual will emerge.

Surprised By The Story Telling, It's Sensitivity & Balance
I am not a doctor, nor a therapist and I am certainly not a Yoga expert. I read the book because a friend suggest it because I sometimes suffer from depression and I have never found my therapy and my med-therapy completely fulfilling. I was capartured by the authors words within the 1st few pages and it never let me go. It felt like a good mystery that you never want to put down because it continually reveals new twists and turns that are both baffling and intriguing.

I am hooked on what the author has said and have begun some beginner programs that are already feeling like they balance my talk therapy with a wholistic body therapy through yoga. Anyone who is a skeptic about yoga will get the most out of this book.

Her views on the need for the body to recover as much as the mind from depression struck me as simple yet astounding because we always think that talking & meds are a balance to depression or a vehicle out of depression; while missing the point of how we are centered through our bodies. All of this plus being backed up by research hit home in a significant way.

Yoga for Depression: Saved my Life
Dr. Christiane Northrup has called YOGA FOR DEPRESSION a "godsend" for good reason. Amy Weintraub's new book has given me insight in how to BE with myself in yoga class, so that I am doing the postures and breathing in new and more beneficial ways. "Going inside" now has a deeper meaning for me. I have been able to reach those parts of my psyche that have long been repressed. By getting to those areas, I have had openings in my life which I didn't even realize were possible. Reading this book has led me to a fuller, richer practice, and a fuller richer life. I threw away the anti-depressant medications & blended my new yoga practice with psychotherapy, I have regained my power & have taken charge of my emotions. I have ended a long term relationship, which I have tried for years & cleared the emotional & physical clutter in my life.

YOGA FOR DEPRESSION defines the different types of yoga practices with clear understanding about what practices are most likely to work for an individual. The book is both educational & inspiring and is appropriate for both mental health professionals and those experiencing depression. I would highly recommend this book to yoga practitioners, yoga teachers, mental health professionals and those who are holistically conscious.
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