Stretching for 10 mins a day can easily lessen the symptoms of menopause and depression, according to research carried out by the North American Menopause Society.
However, the evidence for the point out does not entirely stand up to scrutiny (observe our expert analysis below).
The researchers analysed the effects of light physical exercise on 40 menopausal women in between the ages of 40 and 61. They compared this guide along with data on the quantity of times they suffered hot flushes, chills, aches and slumber disruption.
Twenty of the women were told to Extend for 10 mins a day prior to bed for 3 weeks, and the others twenty were told to do no exercise.
At the start of the study, the teams gave normally comparable answers in a questionnaire concerning their mood and menopause symptoms. The women in the Extending group had improved scores on the 2 collections of questions after 3 weeks, despite the fact that the 2 teams reported no modification in the variety of hot flushes.
Dr JoAnn Pinkerton, executive director of the society, said: ‘If women were to physical exercise along with light strolling 30 mins day-to-day then Extend for 10 minutes, they may enhance their health, menopausal symptoms, mood and cognition and, if Extending assists sleep, enhance their sleep.
‘It is difficult to tell if the beneficial effect located from Extending on menopausal and depressive symptoms was as a result of the stretching, the increased movement, or not carrying out whatever they generally do throughout the 10 mins prior to bed such as eat, smoke or drink.’
Instant analysis
Unfortunately this study relies on a little variety of subjects in a individual group (40 Japanese women aged 40-61 that were asked to Extend for 10 mins day-to-day prior to bed). Such a little variety of subjects limits the electricity and generalisability of the results.Menopausal symptoms were self-reported and as such were subject to a degree of subjectivity, though to the researchers’ credit standardised indices were used (the Simplified Menopausal Index and the Self-Rating Depression Scale) and a degree of randomisation was employed.
However, the study lacked an efficient regulate group — the comparison group was not assigned a task to do prior to bed and so was not able to report any type of improvement in their symptoms.
It is additionally surprising that there was a compliance price of merely 7five per cent in a programme which lasted just 3 weeks, however there was nonetheless an observed reduction in the severity of symptoms reported making use of these scales.
This study must hopefully be repeated in a larger, a lot more diverse group of postmenopausal women and along with a suitably energetic regulate group in order to lure useful, meaningful outcomes from the researchers’ observations.
JCH
Research score: 1/5