Effect of joint practice of walking and yoga on sleep, depression, and quality of life in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome

Abstract

Introduction: Fibromyalgia syndrome is characterized by body pains and exercise such as walking and yoga could help in the treatment. Objectives: To investigate the effect of joint practice of walking and yoga on sleep, depression, impact of fibromyalgia in quality of life, stress and pain in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome. Methods: Nine patients with mean age of 53.78 ±5.40 years were subjected to 32 sessions of these exercises. We used the Questionnaire Socio-demographic and Clinical, the Quality Index and the Pittsburgh Sleep, the Questionnaire about Fibromyalgia Impact, the Beck Depression Inventory and the Perceived Stress Scale. The paired Student’s t-test was used to verify the differences of variables (p <0.05). Results: There were significant improvements of sleep (p=0.01), decreased of depression (p=0.03) and the impact of fibromyalgia on quality of life (p=0.04). Conclusions: Thirty-two sessions of joint practice of walking and yoga produced improvements on symptoms of the syndrome.