Abstract
We would like to express our appreciation to Jasti et al. 1 for taking time to engage with our article titled ‘Development and Validation of Yoga Protocol for Patients with Depression’ 2 published in the ‘Annals of Neuroscience’. It is always valuable to receive feedback and engage in meaningful discussions on important topics.
Regarding the concerns raised by the authors about our methodology for developing the Yoga module, we would like to provide some context to clarify these aspects and address any potential misconceptions. We did not mention ‘no published validated yoga module for depression’ anywhere in our article. Instead, we clearly stated that ‘minimal studies have been done on the development of a yoga module for the specific clinical aspects of depression’. 2
We firmly believe that conducting new research on the same topic is essential for the growth of knowledge, the refinement of methodologies, and the adaptation of research to changing conditions. This approach ensures that our understanding of a subject remains relevant, accurate, and up-to-date.
Our goal is not only to validate the Yoga protocol but also to bring that protocol into an e-module platform. To achieve this, we conducted a comprehensive literature search, selecting Yoga practices from scientific literature, classical Yoga texts, such as Gheranda Samhita, 3 Hatha Yoga Pradeepika, 4 and Patanjali Yoga Sutras, 5 along with contemporary Yoga-related books like ‘Yoga Therapy Series: Yogic Management of Diseases’, 6 ‘Suryanamaskar’, 7 ‘Yoga Darshana’, 8 and ‘Light on Yoga’, 9 etc. Consequently, the protocol for mild depression consisted of 26 yogic practices, while the protocol for moderate depression included 35 yogic practices.
These developed Yoga protocols for mild and moderate depression underwent a rigorous review by senior experts, including Yoga professionals and researchers in the fields of Yoga, Physiology, and Psychology. They recommended 13 practices out of 26 for mild depression and 12 practices out of 35 for moderate depression and we have clearly mentioned it in Tables 1 and 2 in our article. 2 The practices removed based on expert suggestions were elaborately given in Supplementary Tables S1 and S2. These tables demonstrate that we have included practices such as Surya namaskar, Surya Nadi pranayama, Ujjayi pranayama, Bhastrika pranayama, as well as backward-bending asanas like Ardha chakrasana and Bhujangasana in the protocol, all of which were selected after a thorough literature search. Since it is a validation study, we cited the articles only on the validation aspect focussing on the validation of e-yoga protocol for mild and moderate depression.10–13
The final protocol was the result of this protocol development programme; hence, we presented the results as it is as per the advice and suggestions given by the experts. Furthermore, we have already mentioned that the Experts were the experienced (>10 years) medical professionals in yoga, physiology, and psychology, who either practiced or treated patients with yoga. 2
The main purpose of this validation study is to develop a Yoga e-module for depression. To the best of our knowledge, no protocol development had been undertaken for e-Yoga before, which prompted us to create a standard e-module in the form of a Yoga app, as clearly discussed in our article.
2
As outlined in the discussion section, our initial focus has been on creating Yoga modules tailored for mild and moderate depression. It’s important to highlight that this represents just the initial phase of our project. In continuation of our efforts, we have successfully created the DST SRIHER - AVISHADA YOGA App
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project was financially supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) under the SATYAM category (Reference project title: DST/SATYAM/COVID-19/2020/25, Reference project number: 28262).
