Yoga is a complex practice that is comprised of advice for an ethical lifestyle, physical activity, and breathing and meditation exercises (Feuerstein, 1998; De Michelis, 2008). Although yoga originally evolved as a spiritual practice, in the 20th and 21st century, it has become a popular means of promoting physical and mental health and wellbeing (Feuerstein, 1998; De Michelis, 2008), especially outside of India.

An estimated 21 million American adults report that they have practiced yoga in the last 12 months in 2012, and 9.8 million have used some form of meditation at the same time (Cramer et al., 2016a). Prevalence rates in other (western) countries are similar (Xue et al., 2007; Cramer, 2015). A large number of people practice yoga or meditation specifically for their mental health and well-being (e.g., to reduce depression, anxiety and stress; Cramer et al., 2016b). Clinical evidence suggests that the use of yoga might be beneficial for a variety of mental health conditions, including depression. Systematic reviews have revealed preliminary evidence for efficacy and safety of yoga for major depressive disorders (Cramer et al., 2017), as well as for individuals with depressive symptoms but without a formal diagnosis of a depressive disorder (Cramer et al., 2013a). Further reviews have shown that yoga can be effective and safe for individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (Cramer et al., 2018).

Yoga commonly includes physical activity and mental exercises, such as relaxation and meditation, although some yoga schools exclusively rely on the physical activity part (Feuerstein, 1998; De Michelis, 2008). Physical activity (Irandoust et al., 2019; Heissel et al., 2023), relaxation (Jia et al., 2020) and also meditation in itself (Jain et al., 2015) can be beneficial for depression.

Negative life events (e.g., the death of family members, physical assault) have been linked to depressive episodes in previous research (Kendler et al., 1999; Hammen, 2005; Risch et al., 2009). Previous research has also indicated that the response to negative life events may be influenced by the perception of stress (Kuiper et al., 1986). Several factors have been identified to protect against depression after stressful events, including social support, and an optimistic view on life (Scheier and Carver, 1992; Auerbach et al., 2011; Marroquin, 2011; Souri and Hasanirad, 2011).

Few studies have examined how or why yoga or meditation might improve depression symptoms. For example, yoga practice may lead to improved regulation of stress reactivity via the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, and the noradrenergic, serotonergic, and dopaminergic systems, or, on another level, promotion of more adaptive ways of thinking, including increasing acceptance and decreasing self-criticism (Uebelacker et al., 2010). Qualitative studies on yoga support those above theories, as individuals practicing yoga describe that yoga increases their acceptance of life’s burden (Cramer et al., 2013a), and decreases rumination (Kinser et al., 2013a,b). Thus, yoga or meditation may be able to “buffer” the effect of stressful life events on depression in that the yoga practitioner may experience less physiological reactivity, and may be able to be more accepting of changes that occur as a result of the event.

The analyses reported here were conducted using data from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH), which had been designed to assess health and wellbeing and associated factors in Australian women. Women in three different age groups (18–23, 45–50, and 70–75 years) were randomly selected from the national Medicare database in 1996 (Brown et al., 1998), with respondents shown to be broadly representative of the national population of women in the respective age cohorts (Brown et al., 1999). Following the baseline survey, women were assessed via follow-up survey every 3 years. For the sub-study reported here, only data from the 2015 wave were utilized, and analyses focused on the 7,186 women from the cohort born in 1973–1978, these women were between 36 and 43 years of age at the time of the 2015 survey. This cohort was selected because our analyses have shown that the women in this cohort had the highest rate of yoga utilization (data not shown). This cohort consisted of 14,762 women at the start of the longitudinal study. The 7,186 women still participating at the time of the analyzed survey (19 years after the start of the study) thus represent 48.7% of the original cohort (51.3% attrition). The previous surveys were not included in this cross-sectional analysis, nor were data from the other age groups.

This study presents several key findings. First of all, this study identified perceived stress as a mediator between the occurrence of negative life events, and depression symptoms. Secondly, the relationship between perceived stress and depressive symptoms is moderated by the amount of social support and optimism. Lastly, the use of yoga/meditation moderated the direct path between negative life events and depression, but not the indirect path through perceived stress. No moderating influence of physical activity was found.

Previous research has documented a relationship between negative life events and major depressive episodes (Kendler et al., 1999; Hammen, 2005; Risch et al., 2009) and has also indicated that the presence of negative life events per se may not be sufficient to induce depression, and that the response may be influenced by the perception of stress (Kuiper et al., 1986). High levels of perceived stress may not only lead to lowered mood, irritability, and disrupted sleep, but people under stress also may neglect healthy lifestyle practices which itself may contribute to depressive mood (Seib et al., 2014).

Our study also finds a moderating effect of social support on depression, “buffering” the impact of perceived stress on depressive symptoms. The impact of social support has been studied before extensively, and a number of studies confirms the role of positive social circumstances in the development of stress disorders and depression (Siegel and Brown, 1988; Auerbach et al., 2011; Marroquin, 2011). Studies have also indicated that the presence of social support can reduce the sympathetic response to stress (Taylor, 2011), however findings are inconsistent as some studies did not find beneficial effects of social support (Auerbach et al., 2011; Taylor, 2011), and mechanisms are not well understood (Marroquin, 2011). Furthermore an optimistic view on life was also found to moderate the relationship between stress and depression in our study. Optimism is highly correlated with an active, problem-focused coping style (M.F. Scheier and Carver, 1992), which in turn may serve to mitigate feelings of helplessness and thus reduce perceived stress. Research has also shown that optimism is strongly associated with resilience and the successful adaption to adverse circumstances (Souri and Hasanirad, 2011).

Given that physical activity may serve to prevent the onset of depression (Mammen and Faulkner, 2013), we were surprised that physical activity did not moderate the impact of stressful life events on depression. Previous research is mixed. For example, in an epidemiologic study of young adults in Canada, physical activity did buffer the effect of work stress, but not personal stress, financial stress, or recent life events, on subsequent depression in early adulthood (Colman et al., 2014). An epidemiologic study of women in the US found that physical activity did decrease the association between recent chronic stress and depressive symptoms, but only in African American (not white) women (Lincoln, 2017). Finally, other research in a large sample of women in the US either failed to find that physical activity served as a moderator of specific stressors and depression, or found that the effect was very small (Uebelacker et al., 2013).

Unlike physical activity, some yoga and meditation practices may be employed at any moment, and as part of an immediate response to stressful life events (Uebelacker et al., 2017). That is, one cannot always leave a situation and go for a walk or a run, but one may always direct one’s attention to taking long slow breaths, or one may silently repeat a mantra. Further, in many yoga classes, aspects of mindfulness are taught; where students are taught to step back and observe and accept (rather than immediately react) their own thoughts, feelings, or sensations. Gard et al. propose that yoga improves self-regulation, which would include the management of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses when one encounters stressful events in everyday life (Gard et al., 2014). These skills are very relevant in moments of stress, and may help to prevent the development of depression (van der Velden et al., 2015). Evidence from systematic reviews found some evidence that yoga and meditation might be beneficial for depression (Cramer et al., 2013a, 2017; Jain et al., 2015), although there is limited evidence for effects when yoga as an add-on to antidepressant medication was compared to medication alone, and the risk–benefit ratio of yoga for depression is unclear (Cramer et al., 2017).

The reduction of stress is one of the most popular and plausible modes of action (Chiesa and Serretti, 2009; Uebelacker et al., 2010). However our analysis found no influence of yoga/meditation practice on the perceived stress mediated pathway. Instead our study found that regular yoga/meditation use directly “dampened” the association between negative life events and depressive symptoms; where those women practicing yoga “often” had lower CESD-10 scores on average when reporting negative life events, compared to women without any yoga practice.

It is plausible that yoga not only regulates the cognitive aspects of stress (i.e., perceived stress), but may have a positive impact on other bodily functions such as sleep, and appetite, which might be disrupted as a consequence of experiencing negative life events (Lavie, 2001; Keller et al., 2007). It is also possible that yoga or meditation practice helps to divert individuals from other types of negative cognition (such as self-criticism) through helping the practitioner focus on posture and breathing during yoga classes and beyond (Ramel et al., 2004; Chiesa and Serretti, 2009; Kinser et al., 2013a,b). These hypotheses are speculative, and need to be examined in future research to uncover the full potential of yoga and meditation for depression prevention and management, and their effects need to be distinguished.

Because these data are cross-sectional, the findings do not necessarily establish a causal relationship with yoga practice improving resilience when life events occur. Other explanations are possible; such as women who are more resilient and experience negative life events are more likely to practice yoga regularly as part of their active coping style. At this stage, more research is warranted to identify the ways in which yoga/meditation may be linked to resilience when negative life events occur.

Other psychological variables that have been discussed as mechanisms for the effects of yoga and meditation are self-efficacy expectations, body awareness, mindfulness, and spirituality (Cramer et al., 2013b; Gard et al., 2014; Shonin and Van Gordon, 2016; Park et al., 2020). Future studies should investigate a potential mediator or moderator function of these variables.

This analysis assessed the mechanism of yoga and meditation for depression prevention. Yoga/meditation use was a significant moderator of the relationship between negative life events and depression. Rather than moderating its effects through stress, yoga/meditation seems to modify a more direct path on depression. Further studies are warranted to further evaluate the mechanisms of yoga/meditation for depression prevention.

The data analyzed in this study is subject to the following licenses/restrictions: ALSWH survey data are owned by the Australian Government Department of Health and due to the personal nature of the data collected, release by ALSWH is subject to strict contractual and ethical restrictions. Ethical review of ALSWH is by the Human Research Ethics Committees at The University of Queensland and The University of Newcastle. De-identified data are available to collaborating researchers where a formal request to make use of the material has been approved by the ALSWH Data Access Committee. The committee is receptive of requests for datasets required to replicate results. Information on applying for ALSWH data is available from https://alswh.org.au/for-data-users/applying-for-data/. Requests to access these datasets should be directed to alswh@uq.edu.au.

The studies involving humans were approved by University of Newcastle’s Human Research Ethics Committee, approval numbers: H-076-0795 and H-2012-0256, and the University of Queensland’s Medical Research Ethics Committee, approval numbers: 2004000224 and 2012000950. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

RL, DA, and HC contributed to conception and design of the study. RL, DA, and DS performed the statistical analysis. RL wrote the first draft of the manuscript. DA, LU, DS, JA, and HC wrote sections of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This work was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP140100238), and we are also grateful to the ARC for supporting Distinguished JA via a Professorial Future Fellowship (FT140100195) while working on this manuscript. We acknowledge support by Open Access Publishing Fund of University of Tübingen.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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