Cramer, H., Pokhrel, B., Fester, C., Meier, B., Gass, F., Lauche, R., . . . Langhorst, J. (2015). A randomized controlled bicenter trial of yoga for patients with colorectal cancer. Psycho-Oncology, 25, 412–420.
To evaluate the effects of yoga on quality of life, anxiety, depression, and sleep in patients with colorectal cancer.
At week 10, the yoga group had greater decline in anxiety (p = 0.043) and depression (p = 0.038) scores, but, at week 22, there was no difference between groups. At week 10, there were no differences between groups in PSQI scores, however, at week 22, those in the yoga group had better sleep quality (p = 0.043). There was no relationship between home practice time and outcomes. Only about half attended yoga sessions, and average home practice was about one hour per week. There were no significant differences between groups in overall quality of life scores.
Yoga may be helpful to some patients to reduce sleep disturbances.
These results did not show meaningful impact of yoga on anxiety or depression. Yoga was beneficial in terms of improving sleep, although changes seen were small, and findings are limited due to study limitations. Further research in the potential role of yoga for sleep improvement is needed.