Yoga as a Tool for Managing Smartphone Addiction: A Narrative Review of Dopaminergic Reward Circuitry and Emerging Neurobiological Evidence

Abstract

The emergence and evolution of technology are making human life easier. Smartphones have become a key driver of life, enabling connections to the world from anywhere, whether it is online shopping, social media networks, entertainment, online payments, or chat, etc. This has raised dependency on smartphones in the recent decade. This dependency on and use of smartphones has now become problematic and has emerged as a significant public health concern, a prevalent behavioral addiction of the digital age, predominantly among university students. It is causing deterioration in cognitive impairments, social relationships, academic performance, emotional and overall well-being. Despite positive results, there is a lack of comprehensive data to fully understand the core concepts of smartphone addiction and the effect of yoga on it. This review study summarizes research findings from numerous studies, how well Yoga helps to encourage healthier and mindful smartphone use behavior, improve mental health outcomes, and the core concept of SA. A search was conducted across databases, including PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, Google Scholar Labs and SAGE journals. This review includes original articles focusing on pre-post intervention, RCTs, quasi-experimental and evidence-based studies. Yoga has been shown to have a significant improvement in overcoming addictive behavior and breaking the loop of reward systems pleasuring mechanism through its practices like meditation, pranayama, pratyahara, aasana, etc. These practices elevate self-regulation, emotional regulation, mindful use, and detachment. Thus, Yoga can help as an all-around digital detoxification tool.

Keywords: Yoga, Neurobiology of addiction, BDNF, Reward circuit, Smartphone Addiction, Problematic Smartphone use, Neuroscience of Yoga.