According to the Global Burden of Disease report, from 1990 to 2017, anxiety disorder doubled from 20% to over 40% in the U.S. The World Health Organization notes that unrecognized mental disorders account for more disabilities than all other illnesses, but few people recognize and seek help for mental health until symptoms are chronic and severe.   

Lifetime rates for mental illness in the U.S. are at 50%—one in four people have one or more episodes, and incidences increase with age. Chronic mental stress is now correlated to physical disease breakdown, as well as dementia and Alzheimer’s risk. Much is discussed about depression, but twice as many people live with the stress of untreated anxiety disorder. 

This data indicates that mental disorders are so common that they need to become an essential focus of global health. Medications and psychotherapy are the prevailing treatments. However, the integrated holistic treatment of yoga therapy for balancing the mind and body, an ancient prescription for centuries, has been found effective by numerous studies in combination with psychiatric treatments—or for milder cases, alone.      

How can yoga therapy help the more than 970 million people globally with clinical anxiety disorder, and the other 792 million living mental disorders such as depression, bipolar, OCD, PTSD, eating disorders, substance abuse or schizophrenia? The National Institute of Health reports that yoga therapy can help those with disordered psychological reactions in five specific ways: