Protecting youth mental health

Every child’s path to adulthood—reaching developmental and emotional milestones, learning healthy social skills, and dealing with problems—is different and difficult. Many face added challenges along the way, often beyond their control. There’s no map, and the road is never straight.

Fun moves for focus

Yoga is a mind-body-heart practice so it makes sense that different Yoga Asana’s (Poses) have different effects on our body.  Balancing poses are a great way to foster focus and concentration and also help us tune into any imbalances we may have in our bodies.  For instance, when doing Tree Pose most people will notice that there is one side of their body that feels more steady. 

A simple activity to help kids feel centered and balanced is below.  I call it Moving Mountains

Start in Tadasana or Mountain Pose.  To make it fun and easy to remember I tell children that Mountains have 4 S’s.  They are stable, straight, silent and still. (The silent and still is usually the trickiest for them!) Ask them to place their feet like train tracks (parallel) and feel their feet rooted to the earth.

From here you can explore shifting the gaze upward or closing the eyes and seeing if you can feel balance in your body.  You can begin to place with balancing postures by lifting one foot off the ground and then the other. (Everything we do in yoga on one side we do one the other!)  Ask them to notice, without any judgement, how each side felt in their body and if any thoughts came up in their  mind.   Practicing balancing postures is a good lesson in Yoga is a practice not a perfect as well as help us tune into our own Mind-body connection.

Kids yoga benefits

The purpose of this review is to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of yoga for the reduction of symptoms of anxiety and depression in youth.