Summary: Yes, yoga does help opioid withdrawal by reducing the impact of negative adaptations in the human nervous system caused by opioid addiction.
Key Points:
- Recovery from opioid addiction is complicated by the severe and uncomfortable symptoms of opioid withdrawal syndrome.
- Difficulty managing the short- and long-term symptoms of withdrawal are one of the primary causes of relapse to opioid use.
- While medication can ease some symptoms of withdrawal, the standard medications for opioid use disorder (MOUDs) do not mitigate maladaptive activity in the parasympathetic nervous system associated with stress and anxiety.
Achieving Sustainable Recovery from Opioid Addiction
In the study “Yoga for Opioid Withdrawal and Autonomic Regulation: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” a group of researchers collected data from patients residential addiction treatment center and designed a trial to answer the following question:
“Can yoga as adjuvant therapy accelerate opioid withdrawal recovery and improve autonomic regulation in patients with opioid use disorder?”
Most people reading this article know will likely know about the opioid crisis in the U.S. Since 1999, we’ve lost close to a million lives to drug overdose, with roughly 70 percent of those deaths attributable to opioids. In the past two years, we appear to have turned a corner. For the first time since the crisis began, we’ve recorded decreases in opioid overdose fatalities for close to two consecutive years.
Here’s the data:
2023:
- All: 110,037
- Opioids: 80,719
2024:
- All: 80,391
- Opioids: 54,101
12 Months Ending September 2025:
- All: 68,962
- Opioids: 44,545
If the data from the last three months of 2025 follow the same trend, then these figures show a major step forward in our collective effort to mitigate the extensive harm experienced by individuals, families, and communities during the opioid crisis.
Based on this data, we’re cautiously optimistic that the worst of the crisis is behind us. We see the impact of opioid addiction every day, and we see people working to achieve long-term recovery from opioid addiction every day. We’re cautious because maintaining recovery from opioid addiction is difficult, in large part due to the effects of opioid withdrawal.
That’s why the study we introduce above has our attention. It examines a method for reducing withdrawal symptoms – yoga – that can support current standard treatment for opioid addiction and opioid withdrawal.
We’ll discuss the study in a moment. First, we’ll offer a basic primer on opioid withdrawal, and why it increases risk of relapse.
What is Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome (OWS)?
Here’s how the experts at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) define opioid withdrawal syndrome (OWS):
“A syndrome that is defined by signs and symptoms related to abrupt or gradual stoppage of opioids use.”
Here’s a slightly more detailed definition, provided by the publication “The Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome: Presentation, Measurement, and Management”:
“The opioid withdrawal syndrome is a collection of self-reported symptoms and observable physiological signs that an individual who is physically dependent on opioids is undergoing after an episode of acute or protracted abstinence from opioids.”
The primary symptoms of opioid withdrawal include:
- Severe cravings for opioids
- Severe physical aches and pain
- Elevated heart rate
- Elevated blood pressure
- Muscle spasms and muscular tension
- Twitching
- Tremors
- Severe stomach cramps
- Nausea/vomiting
- Diarrhea
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Restlessness
- Irritability
- Insomnia
- Fever
- Chills
- Dilated pupils
- Sweating
- Tearing/crying
- Runny nose
People who experience OWS report that it’s physically painful and emotionally/psychologically miserable. The severe physical discomfort and emotional distress cause many people to relapse to opioid use before withdrawal symptoms abate.
That’s why many people who seek support for opioid addiction use medication to ease withdrawal symptoms, including medications for opioid use disorder (MOUDs) such as buprenorphine. Buprenorphine can ease symptoms such as cravings, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and many of the physical symptoms of withdrawal.
However, buprenorphine does not directly help restore typical activity in the parasympathetic nervous system – unofficially known as the rest and digest system – which is associated with significant “ongoing stress reactivity” that increases risk of relapse.
With an extensive body of research showing yoga has a positive effect on restoring balance and optimal function in the parasympathetic nervous system, the research team hypothesized that combining yoga with standard treatment for opioid withdrawal could mitigate remaining withdrawal symptoms, and decrease time to stabilization, i.e. end withdrawal faster.
Let’s take a look at the study: did their experimental results confirm their hypothesis?
Yoga During Opioid Withdrawal
To examine whether yoga can help opioid withdrawal, the research team recruited 59 participants with opioid use disorder (OUD), a.k.a. opioid addiction, and divided them into two groups:
Group One:
Yoga + treatment-as-usual group (YAT):
- This group received standard treatment with buprenorphine
- In addition, patients in this group participated in 10 yoga sessions with a trained yoga instructor, 45 minutes each, over a two-week period. Classes included:
- Yoga poses
- Breathing exercises
- Guided relaxation
Group Two:
Treatment-as-usual (TAU):
- This group received standard treatment with buprenorphine
To measure the impact of yoga on the parasympathetic nervous system and its effect on opioid withdrawal, the research team focused on two outcome measures:
- Heart rate variability (HRV) patterns that indicate autonomic/parasympathetic regulation.
- HF power
- LF power
- LF/HF ratio
- Time to recovery from withdrawal symptoms.
In addition, the researchers measured differences between the two groups in the following areas:
- Anxiety
- Sleep quality
- Pain
Let’s look at what they found.
Yoga and Opioid Withdrawal: Experimental Outcomes
HRV Changes:
- Yoga group:
- HF power increased, indicating normalized autonomic regulation
- LF power decreased, indicating normalized autonomic regulation
- LF/HF ratio decreased, indicating normalized autonomic regulation
- TAU group:
- HF power: no change
- LF power: no change
- LF/HF ratio: no change
Time to Withdrawal Stabilization:
- Yoga group: 5 days
- TAU group: 9 days
Additional Outcomes:
- Anxiety: compared to TAU, the yoga group showed significantly improved scores on anxiety metrics
- Sleep: compared to TAU, the yoga group showed significantly improved sleep latency, i.e. time to sleep after going to bed, with participants falling asleep an average of 61 minutes faster than participants in the TAU group.
- Pain: results showed no significant differences between the yoga group and the TAU group on measures of pain perception and pain severity
Those results show that participants in the yoga group experienced greater improvements in both primary outcome areas, HRV and time to withdrawal stabilization, confirming the experimental hypothesis:
Yoga can “accelerate opioid withdrawal recovery and improve autonomic regulation” in the context of medication-supported withdrawal from opioids.
The yoga group also showed improvements in anxiety and sleep, compared to the TAU group. Since problems with anxiety and sleep contribute to risk of relapse, these outcomes strengthen the case for yoga as an effective addition to treatment for opioid addiction during the withdrawal period.
We’ll discuss these results further, below.
Yoga and Addiction Treatment, Yoga and Opioid Withdrawal
When you read this article carefully, and review the source material closely, you’ll see the people in the study – in both groups – used medication that mitigates withdrawal symptoms and improves overall outcomes for people with opioid addiction.
That may lead you to ask this question:
If they were on medication, why would they need yoga?
Here’s the first part of the answer to that question:
Because recovery from addiction – especially recovery from opioid addiction – is challenging for anyone under any circumstances, and medication-assisted treatment during withdrawal, or for long-term maintenance, is always about more than medication. It’s about moving toward long-term stabilization and improving overall quality of life.
The second part of the answer:
Yoga helps restore typical, healthy function in brain areas that typical medication for withdrawal symptoms does not affect.
Standard treatment can help reduce cravings and decrease the severity of symptoms like nausea and diarrhea, but it’s ineffective in addressing brain dysfunction associated with anxiety and stress reactivity, which are both partially controlled by the parasympathetic component of the autonomic nervous system, both of which can increase risk of relapse.
As a complementary, alternative, and supportive therapy for people in addiction treatment, previous research shows yoga is effective in reducing symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress. For patients in residential treatment for addiction, previous research shows that yoga as an add-on or supportive addiction therapy enhances cognitive function, thereby improving treatment outcomes.
This new study shows us that yoga, when used in addition to standard treatment for opioid withdrawal, can improve outcomes in key areas, enhance the recovery process, and increase the likelihood patients in treatment for opioid addiction make it through the withdrawal period, which in turn increases their likelihood of achieving sustainable, long-term recovery.
