Feeling Blue? Try the One Legged Kind Pidgeon!

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Alex et Stéphanie Yoga Arromanche Aout 2006

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Or, for that matter, a flying crow, a revolved half moon, or any number of other yoga poses.

Scientists at the Boston University School of Medicine and the McLean Hospital have discovered that practicing yoga can increase the brain's GABA levels, the same chemical responsible for alleviating depression and various anxiety disorders. Personally, I just feel sore after.

GABA, or gamma-aminobutyric acid, is the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the human brain. Neurotransmitters are responsible for mediating the "conversation" between neurons and other cells (the equivalent of taping someone's mouth shout, whispering, or an all out shouting match). Different neurotransmitters have their own unique effects, allowing the brain to modulate different parts of the body.

So how does GABA work? When a neuron releases GABA, the neurotransmitter diffuses across the area between the neuron and the cell receiving the message, called the synaptic cleft. Once across, GABA binds to proteins on the outside of the receiving cell, effectively preventing it from receiving messages from any other adjacent cells. Without going into gross detail, GABA essentially shoves a sock into the mouth of the receiving cell (much like my older brother would when I was a kid). This is why GABA is termed an inhibitory neurotransmitter (although this isn't true ALL of the time, just like most of biology).

Now, how might practicing yoga alleviate depression and anxiety? Low levels of GABA are associated with these ailments. However, GABA cannot be administered orally or intravenously because it cannot pass the blood-brain barrier (the great wall of our central nervous system, whose role is to keep out invading organisms). Thus, producing GABA endogenously through yoga will circumvent this problem.