Why Kids — and Schools — Need Yoga

A yoga and mindfulness program at Mountain View School District, a small K-12 public school in Kingsley, Pennsylvania, is helping…

A yoga and mindfulness program at Mountain View School District, a small K-12 public school in Kingsley, Pennsylvania, is helping students become less stressed, anxious and even perform better on exams.

Like many schools, Mountain View's curriculum focuses strongly on their students scoring well on state-issued exams. This added pressure not only diminished how their students perform on their tests, but it also took a toll on their overall well-being. Faculty and administrators at the school decided to take action. They wanted to adopt a more holistic wellness strategy to help children manage their stress.

"This is what our education system lacks," Stephanie Anuszewski, director of special services, says. "We give them all of these standardized tests, and we just expect them to know how to cope, and it's not fair. At least with yoga, mindfulness and breathwork, they will have something in their toolbag to help them cope with stress."

[SEE: Can Yoga Treat Depression?]

Why Kids — and Schools — Need Yoga

According to Anuszewshi, the school's new yoga initiative helps at-risk, severely depressed and suicidal children make remarkable strides in their health.

Science also aligns with Mountain View's experience. A 2016 research review of yoga in school settings conducted by Sat Bir Khalsa, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School based at Brigham and Women's Hospital was published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. While more research needs to be done, it found that yoga has great potential to help students deal with stress and anxiety — and also develop life skills.

"Yoga provides behavioral strategies that could not only prevent the onset of these conditions, they could also improve human functioning, including cognitive and academic performance, well-being and quality of life," Khalsa says. "This research can demonstrate that yoga belongs in the school curriculum as a mandatory behavioral practice to improve socio-emotional learning. This has been referred to as the education of the whole child, not just education to prepare children for an occupation."

Khalsa's yoga research provides hope that yoga can be an efficient proactive measure to tackle the pressures of school before they become debilitating.

"Our focus was on prevention of mental health conditions," he says. He and his colleagues saw improvements in stress, resilience, anxiety, emotional regulation and risk of substance abuse.

Mountain View first offered yoga to their most at-risk students and found such positive results, they decided to initiate a school-wide yoga program.

"In high school, we (initially) targeted the most disruptive students," Anuszewski says. "We have these burly male students that you wouldn't think would enjoy yoga, and they loved it. And you could see self-regulation has increased and behavior disruption decreased. It's noticeably different and definitely beneficial."

[Read: Anxiety in Kids.]

The Benefits of Yoga in the Classroom

At the beginning of the 2019 school year, Mountain View started a district-wide yoga initiative, with the help of a grant they were awarded from the Pennsylvania Association for Rural and Small Schools.

Within the first few months, the school district of around 1,000 students had 100 who voluntarily attended yoga.

"Every week we get 10 new participants," Anuszewski says. "The kids and the parents love it. They have all bought in to the yoga concept."

The school's yoga program has gotten so big, they divided the yoga classes into three groups by grade levels and made designated mindfulness rooms.

Classes are held weekly for 50 minutes during the school day, without interfering with their academic schedule. If a student decides they don't want to attend yoga, they have an option to receive personal help with their homework instead.

"It's just heartwarming, when you walk into the mindfulness room and 30 kids are in a pose and they are silent," Anuszewski says. "They might be in a camel pose or table, and they are completely focused and engaged. It's just awesome."

The structure of the classes are similar to a regular yoga class. First, they center themselves by sitting quietly, cross-legged. The classes are built to help empower students.

"We go over all of the same poses every week, multiple times," yoga teacher Chelsea Manganaro says. Each pose is paired with an affirmation. For example:

— I am bright: star pose (standing tall with your arms and legs extended wide).

— I am brave: warrior 2.

— I am balanced: half moon.

— I am strong: goddess pose.

— I am still: tree pose.

— I am super: warrior 3.

— I am kind: tadasana or mountain pose.

The kids use a mantra: Sa,Ta, Na, Ma (which means beginning, creativity, transformation, re-invention.) "The kids love it, " Manganaro says. "Then we work on a breathing technique in preparation for savasana (final resting pose)."

Kera Wodock, parent of 6-year-old Annabel, who practices yoga at Mountain View, notices the changes it instilled in her child.

"She will watch me and tell me, 'Mom, take a deep breath,'" Wodock says. "It does relax her when she is at school. She has learned to re-center herself. It teaches her to live in the moment and not get worried about stuff. I wish that all schools had (this). Even if they had it 30 minutes every day."

[SEE: Should You Try Mindfulness Meditation to Treat Anxiety Disorder?]

Kids Learn to Manage Stress and Emotions

Anuszewski believes that Mountain View's wellness initiative will help children succeed beyond their academic endeavors.

"By teaching kids breathwork and yoga, we're hoping to teach them something about their bodies and how to handle the stresses of school," Anuszewski says. "I don't believe education is reading, writing and math anymore. It has to be a holistic approach because we are raising children to be functional members of society — to handle what life has coming for them."

Khalsa agrees that yoga is key to develop healthy, well-rounded children. "Our modern society virtually does not provide training in the management of stress and emotions… or mindfulness," Khalsa says. "We have a very high burden of mental health problems in our children and adolescents. The lifetime prevalence of psychiatric problems by age 21 well exceeds 80%."

The efforts at Mountain View school are hopefully the sign of more to come at other schools. According to Khalsa, there is a 6-year, $4-million research trial that will likely show the efficacy of yoga for anxiety disorder that will be completed soon.

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Why Kids — and Schools — Need Yoga originally appeared on usnews.com