I have now been practising Yoga Nidra guided meditations for around 3 months at the time of writing this, daily each morning. I definitely have seen cumulative benefits for progressive reduction of my Parkinson's Disease symptoms over that time, including much reduced anxiety, pain, less really bad days. However, in particular, I’ve noted increased effectiveness of dopamine replacement drugs, longer "on" periods, as well as improved sleep. Indeed, I personally believe that the practice does indeed boost my dopamine levels, because when I take a dose of my PD meds after or during a Yoga Nidra session, it is much more likely that that dose will actually work to turn my movement back on, and it can take as little as 15-20 minutes for the drug to kick in (this is very short time for me, about 50% less time needed than usual.
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Yoga and Parkinson's Disease
A consideration of what I’ve learned from my teachers (Achayras). So much I could talk about! Hope, purpose, a sense of letting go. An altogether holistic/total yoga approach. The overall learning message I've taken from my teachers is that it is this combination and integration of approaches which is most effective: nutrition, hydration, movement and emotional well being.
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Meditation and Parkinson's Disease
Pragmatic answers for people with Parkinson's Disease can be gleaned by understanding that one of our fundamental problems is that we're stuck in the Freeze or "Playing Dead" stress mode of our parasympathetic nervous systems. This renders us completely unable to relax, which then necessarily leads to increasing inflammation and toxification of our brains and bodies, with the resulting increase in pain making us ever more stressed - a very vicious circle. Hence re-learning how to relax has to be a principle goal in our recovery: to regain the knowledge of how to switch our "rest & digest" parasympathetic nervous system back on for prolonged periods.
Read MoreHow A Yoga Mudra Helped Me to Control Side-Effects of Parkinson's Drugs
Right back at the start of the Out-Thinking Parkinson's project we were focused on interventions to control dyskinesia - an unfortunate side effect of the drugs prescribed to alleviate the stiffness and rigidity of Parkinson's. Since then our researches have demonstrated that the best way to prevent dyskinesia is to lower the drug burden, safely accomplished by using diet, music and movement therapy, light therapy and relaxation techniques to significantly reduce the symptoms of the disease itself.
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