Indian researchers have found that yoga can reduce hot flashes and night sweats among women going through menopause. Yoga also seems to sharpen their mental function, say Dr R Chattha of the Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana in Bangalore, India and his co-researchers.

To find out if yoga would help women with physical and cognitive symptoms of menopause, the researchers randomly assigned 120 menopausal women, 40 to 55 years old, to yoga practice or simple stretching and strengthening exercises five days a week for eight weeks.

They said that the postures, breathing and meditation included in the yoga intervention were “aimed at one common effect, i.e. ‘to develop mastery over modifications of the mind’ … through ’slowing down the rate of flow of thoughts in the mind.”‘

While women in the yoga group also listened to lectures on using yoga to manage stress and other topics related to yoga, those in the control group heard lectures on diet, exercise, the physiology of menopause, and stress.

Eight weeks later, it was observed that women in the yoga group experienced a considerable reduction in hot flashes, night sweats, and sleep disturbances, while the women in the control group did not. Although both showed improvements in a test of attention and concentration, the performances of the yoga group were much better. In a test of memory and intelligence with 10 components, the yoga group exhibited improvement on eight, while the control group improved on six. On seven of the subsets, improvements were found to be significantly greater in the yoga group than in the control group.

The researchers said the present study suggests that yoga is superior to physical activity in improving the cognitive functions that could be attributed to emphasis on correctness in breathing, synchronizing breathing with body movements, relaxation etc.