Anxiety disorders are one of the most common psychiatric disorders plaguing the United States. Comorbidities include depression, restless leg syndrome, cancer, and hypertension. The side effects and the high-costs associated with the current pharmacological therapies necessitate exploration of alternative methods of treatment. To determine the efficacy of yoga as a treatment option a systematic review is presented here. The criteria for inclusion in this review were as follows: ( a) published in the English language ( b) published between the period January 2010 and May 2012, ( c) include any form of yoga as a part of or an entire intervention, ( d) use any quantitative study design, and ( e) measure anxiety as an outcome. A total of 27 studies met these criteria. Of these, 19 demonstrated a significant reduction in state and/or trait anxiety. Limitations include a lack of theory-based approaches, subjects experiencing comorbidities, and the use of numerous instruments to measure anxiety outcomes.
Sharma et al. (Thu,) studied this question.