Though mental illness, as such, cannot be directly treated through yoga, stress, which one of the major causes, said mental health expert Prakriti Poddar in a telephonic interview.
"Stress is one of the major factors that leads to depression and you can deal with stress through yoga. You can learn to calm your responses by extending your reaction time, thereby giving you better control on your emotional reactivity," she said.
She said that Yoga asanas like Surya Namaskar, Warrior Pose, Tad Asana, Trikonasana and Pranayam could help a person cope with depression and stress.
"Depression is one of the major diseases of the developed world and it is triggered off by one's inability to cope with stress - emotional and physical. Yoga helps you to calm your nerves, increase your mental strength and help you deal with situations," she explained.
Poddar said that migration of work force from rural to urban areas also triggered depression. She said that there are studies on stress due to different kind of struggles one has to face due to the migration. This includes financial, emotional and physical stress.
"Often situational stress assists it, as people move from a robust support system to a limited one. Loneliness steps in as the sense of belonging depletes," she stated.
She further said that most companies are now incorporating a well-being programme to provide a holistic approach towards the well being of employees.
"Yoga has become a part of corporate wellness programs and has huge benefits for the employees as it lowers stress levels, relaxes the mind, makes the body flexible and invites an overall feeling of well-being. This improves the performance of the employee and promotes a sense of friendship," she said.
Children can also be taught yoga form a young age to help them cope with pressures, personal and professional, when they attain adulthood.
According to various studies, around 14 per cent of the global burden of disease is attributed to neuropsychiatric disorders.
Mental health literacy among adolescents is very low and only 29 per cent could identify depression while others remained unaware of the problem.
Parental disharmony, peer pressure and examination stress can trigger off depression in children.
According to experts, derisive behaviour is a unique form of parenting that increases the risk of adolescent children adopting inappropriate anger management strategies that increases their risk for peer difficulties.
"Constant criticism affects the self-esteem of a child, especially when done by parents. Children tend to feel inferior and lose their sense of confidence. This affects their relationship with parents, making them more vulnerable to various other forms of bullying that happen through their peers.
"Due to hesitation in seeking help, children end up enduring bullying. This has a long-term negative effect on their psyche and overall personality development," Samir Parikh, Consultant Psychiatrist at Fortis Hospital in Delhi, told IANS.
Derisive parents use demeaning or belittling expressions that humiliate and frustrate the child, without any obvious provocation from the child. These parents respond to child engagement with criticism, sarcasm, put-downs, hostility and rely on emotional and physical coercion to obtain compliance.
Published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, the study in which researchers followed 1,409 children (aged 13-15 years) for three consecutive years, emphasized on the emotional underpinnings of peer difficulties.
It was found that derisive parenting fosters dysregulated anger in adolescent children. Increases in dysregulated anger, in turn, place adolescents at greater risk for bullying and victimization.
Dysregulated anger is indicative of difficulties regulating emotion, which typically results in negative emotions, verbal and physical aggression and hostility.
The behaviour of parents as well as other close family members towards children does have a lasting impact on their personality and mental development, said mental health expert Prakriti Poddar, Director at Poddar Foundation in Mumbai.
"Subjecting a child to insult, mockery or derision creates a wave of repressed anger and frustration in the child. Imagine a child telling a parent or another family member about an incident or about his/her understanding of a subject, and the parent responding by mocking or belittling the child! Now imagine, if this happens regularly. Not only will the child lose trust in the parent and stop confiding things, he/she will also grow into a vexed and confused personality," Poddar told IANS.
"This child would not be confident about himself, will have repressed feelings of frustration and in a way will also start normalizing the behaviour of insulting of belittling others. This creates problems with peer adjustment and might lead the child to start victimizing or bullying others. kids develop in response to their environment, therefore, when their environment is toxic or negative, it breeds self-harm," she added.