A small but well designed study found that a weekly routine of yoga, meditation and movement was equally effective to brain training programs in terms of better cognitive skills.
The two groups worked in a classroom setting for one hour a week and were asked to practice their tasks for 15 minutes a day. They practiced their programs for 12 weeks. Then they returned to the university’s lab for another round of cognitive tests and a second brain scan. All of the men and women performed significantly better on most tests of their thinking than at their first assessment.
In terms of mood, however, only those who had practiced yoga, meditation and movement program showed less potential depression than those in the brain training program.
One surprise finding was that the yoga, meditation and movement program performed much better of visual-spatial memory which is important for balance, depth perception and the ability to recognize objects and negotiate the world.
Read more…http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/yoga-may-be-good-for-the-brain/