Effects of a yoga breath intervention alone and in combination with an exposure therapy for post‐traumatic stress disorder and depression in survivors of the 2004 South‐East Asia tsunami

Descilo T, Vedamurtachar A, Gerbarg PL, Nagaraja D, Gangadhar BN, Damodaran B, Adelson B, Braslow LH, Marcus S, Brown RP. Effects of a yoga breath intervention alone and in combination with an exposure therapy for PTSD and depression in survivors of the 2004 South‐East Asia tsunami. Objective: This study evaluated the effect of a yoga breath program alone and followed by a trauma reduction exposure technique on post‐traumatic stress disorder and depression in survivors of the 2004 Asian tsunami. Method: In this non‐randomized study, 183 tsunami survivors who scored 50 or above on the Post‐traumatic Checklist‐17 (PCL‐17) were assigned by camps to one of three groups: yoga breath intervention, yoga breath intervention followed by 3–8 h of trauma reduction exposure technique or 6‐week wait list. Measures for post‐traumatic stress disorder (PCL‐17) and depression (BDI‐21) were performed at baseline and at 6, 12 and 24 weeks. Data were analyzed using anova and mixed effects regression. Results: The effect of treatment vs. control was significant at 6 weeks ( F 2,178 = 279.616, P < 0.001): mean PCL‐17 declined by 42.5 ± 10.0 SD with yoga breath, 39.2 ± 17.2 with Yoga breath + exposure and 4.6 ± 13.2 in the control. Conclusion: Yoga breath‐based interventions may help relieve psychological distress following mass disasters.