I have now been practising Yoga Nidra guided meditations for around 3 months at the time of writing this, daily each morning. I definitely have seen cumulative benefits for progressive reduction of my Parkinson's Disease symptoms over that time, including much reduced anxiety, pain, less really bad days. However, in particular, I’ve noted increased effectiveness of dopamine replacement drugs, longer "on" periods, as well as improved sleep. Indeed, I personally believe that the practice does indeed boost my dopamine levels, because when I take a dose of my PD meds after or during a Yoga Nidra session, it is much more likely that that dose will actually work to turn my movement back on, and it can take as little as 15-20 minutes for the drug to kick in (this is very short time for me, about 50% less time needed than usual.
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Busy, Anxious Thoughts and Parkinson's Disease
Many people with PD (PwP), and caregivers will also be well aware of this, often encounter an almost constant chatter of busy thoughts in their own heads. This inner voice can speak in undertones of self-doubt and guilt, but also can be constantly seeking to blame others, marshalling arguments and self-justifications. These thoughts can go round and round like a tape stuck on a loop, and be very difficult to break out of. Indeed, PwP can become irritable when someone seeks to interrupt these thoughts. These anecdotal experiences have now been backed by science too. A recent article in "Nature",
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Meditation and Parkinson's Disease
Pragmatic answers for people with Parkinson's Disease can be gleaned by understanding that one of our fundamental problems is that we're stuck in the Freeze or "Playing Dead" stress mode of our parasympathetic nervous systems. This renders us completely unable to relax, which then necessarily leads to increasing inflammation and toxification of our brains and bodies, with the resulting increase in pain making us ever more stressed - a very vicious circle. Hence re-learning how to relax has to be a principle goal in our recovery: to regain the knowledge of how to switch our "rest & digest" parasympathetic nervous system back on for prolonged periods.
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