Fibromyalgia is a strange and painful condition, one that can make just about every part of the body hurt, and one that, stranger still, afflicts nine times as many women as men. Go figure. Now, according to BusinessWeek, researchers at the Oregon Health & Science University have found that yoga relieves at least some of the pain of the mysterious medical condition. The magazine reports that 25 women diagnosed with fibromyalgia were enrolled in a two-hour yoga class that met once a week. Another group of 28 women were put on a waiting list and told to continue their normal routine for dealing with fibromyalgia. After eight weeks, the yoga group reported improvements in both physical and psychological aspects of fibromyalgia, including decreased pain, fatigue, tenderness, anxiety and better sleep and mood.BusinessWeek reports that at the end of the study, 4.5 percent in the yoga group reported being "very much better," 9.1 percent said they were "much better," 77 percent were "a little better" while 4.5 percent reported no change. No one in the the control group reported that they were "very much better" or "much better," 19.2 percent reported being "a little better," and 38.5 percent reported "no change."
Read an abstract from the study in Pain.