Mt. Lebanon native Amy Weintraub is returning to Pittsburgh this weekend to explain how practicing yoga helped her overcome a lifetime of suffering from depression.

Ms. Weintraub, 55, wrote the 2003 book, "Yoga for Depression." She'll be holding workshops Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Schoolhouse Yoga, 2401 Smallman St. in the Strip District.

The author attended college in New England and began a successful career writing fiction. But she suffered constantly from depression, which neither psychiatrists nor antidepressant drugs seemed to help.

"On a fall afternoon in the mid-'80s, I sat on the tweed sofa in my psychiatrist's office, two years after entering therapy, feeling as depressed as I ever felt in my life, as she told me I would be one of those people who would always have empty pockets," Ms. Weintraub wrote in a 1999 article. "What she meant, I assumed, was that my depression would forever interfere with my ability to feel fulfilled. What I heard was a life sentence -- I was a depressive."

In 1989, Ms. Weintraub took a yoga class at the Kripalu Center in Lenox, Mass. She felt better immediately.

"Physically, I felt like Rip Van Winkle, waking up, in my case, after nearly 40 years of sleep," Ms. Weintraub said.

She gradually weaned herself from antidepressants, and in a little less than a year after taking up yoga, gave them up entirely.

Yoga as a discipline is thousands of years old. But Kripalu, devised in the last century, is a comparatively modern form of it. It places great emphasis on proper breathing and body alignment as the keys to physical and mental health.

Ms. Weintraub became certified to teach Kripalu Yoga in 1992. She now lives in Tucson, Ariz., where she founded the LifeForce Yoga Healing Institute. She has written a second book, "Breathe to Beat the Blues."

Ms. Weintraub describes yoga as "preventive and positive medicine."

"Just as the immune system is strengthened against the common cold and other viruses with daily practice, the emotional body is strengthened as well," she wrote in her book.

At her seminars, she'll teach yogic breathing strategies to help manage moods; meditation techniques, and guided relaxation techniques, Ms. Weintraub said in an interview with the Post-Gazette.

"The reasons the yogis believe we become depressed is because there is not enough oxygen flowing through the system to the brain," she said.

"If someone is depressed, likely their breathing is shallow and their shoulders are slumped. I'm going to help people clear the space within so that energy and breath can flow."

Studies -- most of them from India -- indicate yogic breathing and asanas (poses) raise levels of the hormones oxytocin and prolactin and increase oxygen levels in the brain, Ms. Weintraub said.

Oxytocin, which is produced by the hypothalamus gland, is sometimes called the "hormone of love" because it is consistently involved in all forms of love, said nurse Denise Fisher in a 2005 paper.

Despite her own experience, Ms. Weintraub made it clear she doesn't recommend yoga as a substitute for conventional medical treatment for depression.

"This is not instead of psychotherapy or medication," she said. "It's in addition."

That answered a concern expressed by Dr. P.V. Nickell, interim chair of the department of psychiatry for Allegheny General Hospital, who said he knows " a whole lot about depression but only a little bit about yoga."

One must distinguish between the blues -- which we all get from time to time -- and major clinical depression, which is a life-threatening illness because, if untreated, it can lead to suicide, Dr. Nickell said.

Dr. Nickell said he's seen only three studies concerning yoga as a treatment for clinical depression. All three indicated that yoga is helpful, but not as helpful as electric shock therapy or antidepressant medications.

"I'm not against yoga," he said. "It can be very valuable for lots of things. Every study I've seen indicates that when yoga is an addition to treatment, people feel better.

"Yoga is a helpful augmentation, but I'd be reluctant to recommend it as a primary or sole treatment for someone with the life-threatening illness we call major depression."

Ms. Weintraub's workshop Friday will be for newcomers to yoga, those on Saturday for people with some experience with the discipline.

The workshops Sunday will be for "healers." For more information on the workshops, call Leta Koontz at 412-401-4444.

Among those planning to attend the workshops Sunday is Dr. Sharon Plank, 52, a family practitioner who directs the "Healthy Minds, Healthy Bodies" program at UPMC's Center for Integrative Medicine.

"We use yoga as [a supplemental treatment for] back pain, depression, colon problems, osteoporosis, even," Dr. Plank said. "It's a way to combine strength and flexibility with nutrition and stress reduction."