We live in an increasingly fast-paced, hectic, and stressful world. Smartphones buzz with texts, emails, and social media notifications around the clock. Just like adults, our modern world can negatively impact the mental and physical health of our children, too. As they develop, it becomes increasingly difficult to shelter them from this environment. Instead, we should teach children the skills they need to thrive in this environment. Yoga benefits toddlers, kids, and teens and teaches them many of these important skills that so many of their peer lack today, such as mindfulness and anxiety management.
Yoga helps kids create a positive body image early on, and also has a number of physical benefits including increased flexibility, strength, balance and aerobic capacity, too. Learn the benefits of yoga for kids here, as well as the best poses that are fun and easy to try at home!
Benefits of Yoga for Kids
Yoga is excellent for both the body and mind. It provides a number of physical benefits for kids, and this creates and reinforces positive habits that will serve them well into adulthood. Similarly, yoga helps kids cultivate positive meditation techniques such as mindfulness that improve relaxation and discipline. In today’s world where so many kids and teens struggle from stress, anxiety, depression, and negative body image, these skills and techniques are more important than ever!
The most important benefits of yoga for kids include:
- Increases memory, focus, and concentration
- Helps manage stress and anxiety
- Promotes positive body image and improves bodily awareness
- Teaches children discipline and reduces impulsivity
- Increases strength, balance, flexibility, and aerobic capacity
- Improves self-esteem
- Linked to higher academic performance and classroom behavior
- Fosters cooperation among peers in a non-competitive environment
Before Your Kids Start Yoga, Consider Creating A Screen Time Plan
Perhaps one of the biggest problems facing kids today is their short attention span. They are constantly being entertained 24/7! The truth is our media is designed today to be as sensational as possible and grab your attention immediately. We can certainly blame big tech and large media companies for pushing this type of dopamine fueled content on everyone, including kids and teens. Ultimately, however, it’s a global trend that has no easy solution.
Although most recommendations are for babies, toddlers, and very young children, it’s important to note this this problem affects all youth age groups. Older kids and teens spend the most time on screens. Today, the numbers are staggering!
Common Sense Media found that 8- to 12-year-olds in the United States now use screens for entertainment for an average of 4 hours, 44 minutes a day, and 13- to 18-year-olds are on screens for an average of 7 hours, 22 minutes each day . These numbers don’t count time using screens for schoolwork or homework.
The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens, 2019
Limiting screen time helps a lot. It’s important, especially for toddlers and younger kids. If you don’t have one already, we strongly recommend a screen-time plan for your children BEFORE they begin yoga to maximize its benefits and effectiveness.
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Screen Time Recommendations
Until 18 months of age limit screen use to video chatting along with an adult (for example, with a parent who is out of town).
Between 18 and 24 months screen time should be limited to watching educational programming with a caregiver.
For children 2-5, limit non-educational screen time to about 1 hour per weekday and 3 hours on the weekend days.
For ages 6 and older, encourage healthy habits and limit activities that include screens.
Turn off all screens during family meals and outings.
Learn about and use parental controls.
Avoid using screens as pacifiers, babysitters, or to stop tantrums.
Turn off screens and remove them from bedrooms 30-60 minutes before bedtime.
Source: Screen Time and Children – The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Yoga Increases Memory, Focus, and Concentration for Kids
Got a screen time plan for your children? Great! The reason it’s so important is that unlimited screen time for kids can cause behavioral problems, educational and learning difficulties, obesity, sleep problems, and more.
In other words, unlimited screen time can create and worsen many of the problems that yoga naturally alleviates, such as stress and anxiety. It can be highly counterproductive to yoga’s benefits!
Yoga helps kids in the classroom and makes them smarter. Yoga is also an excellent technique to increase memory, focus, and concentration for kids. One of the ways this is achieved is though visualizations and chanting during yoga poses or meditations. This practice enhances kid’s visual and verbal skills and improves memory.
Similarly, yoga helps kid’s concentration and focus. This is done by encouraging a relaxing and calm environment, which will limit distracting thoughts. The poses themselves will also help concentration as the balance and flexibility required will also steer thoughts to their body and the present moment.
Yoga Helps Kids Manage Stress and Anxiety
Yoga helps kids manage stress and anxiety the same way it does for adults – by relaxing the body and mind!
This works through a combination of physical poses, breathing exercises, and meditation. There is proven science behind yoga for stress and anxiety management, too!
How?
Yoga activates our parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) through the Vagus nerve. The PNS is the part of our nervous system that governs rest, relaxation, and digestion.
At the same time, yoga also calms our sympathetic nervous system (SNS). sympathetic nervous system is responsible for our “fight or flight” stress response and evolved for us to handle crisis situations that threatened our survival. Unfortunately, for far too many of us, our fast paced world and hectic lifestyles combined with 24/7 connectivity and “gloom and doom” news coverage can keep us permanently stressed and anxious.
The end result? Our sympathetic nervous system is perpetually and disproportionately stimulated as our body and mind believe we are in real and continual danger. Long term, this can create many negative health effects that are linked to premature aging, heart conditions, and increased risk of cancer.
Yoga is an all-natural, effective, simple, and inexpensive practice to activate our PNS and balance our nervous system without drugs or other costly medical treatments.
Kids Are Especially Vulnerable To Stress – Yoga Can Be A highly Beneficial Tool To Reduce and Manage It!
Sadly, kids can be highly vulnerable to fear, stress, and anxiety. Even babies as young as six months old can be affected by stress in their environment. It can negatively affect toddlers, kids, and teens too. If left untreated, this can linger into adulthood. Worse than just dealing with the stress itself, it can also cause cognitive and development problems!
“Stress goes from being helpful and life-saving to unhelpful and life-damaging. Children are especially vulnerable to this repeated stress activation, as their brains and bodies are in a critical and sensitive period of development.”
Nationwide Children’s – Toxic Stress: How the Body’s Response Can Harm a Child’s Development
The good news is that stress management is a teachable skill. Yoga is a great way for kids to learn the skills to deal with stress while they are most teachable, impressionable, and young. The breathing exercises, meditation, and poses learned in yoga will continue to benefits kids as they grow and mature into adults!
Yoga Promotes A Positive Body Image and Improves Bodily Awareness For Kids
Kids, especially younger ones, are still learning about their bodies and how they move. The stretches, bending, and twisting poses of yoga are not only fun; they are a great way for kids to learn about their bodies, too! Increased bodily awareness leads to better flexibility, coordination, and overall development.
As kids grow, regular yoga practice can also help and compliment other physical activities, such as gymnastics. Overall, teaching kids about body awareness at a young age fosters healthy physical and mental development. It also improves the mind-body connection that improves performance in other physical activities and sports, such as weightlifting.
A physically healthy body combined with bodily awareness promotes a positive body image for kids. A healthy body is less likely to be obese or have other preventable health issues that can affect kid’s self-esteem. Similarly, as kids grow and learn more about their bodies, they may be less susceptible to unrealistic and toxic beauty and body images portrayed in the media. There have always been unrealistic body standards on TV. However, now many of their friends and classmates use Photoshop and filters on themselves, too! Today, a positive and healthy body image is increasingly important for our kids. Especially for our young girls!
Yoga Teaches Children Discipline and Reduces Impulsivity
Similar to martial arts, yoga fosters discipline in toddlers, kids, and teens. Children must pay attention and listen to a yoga instructor. It requires patience and practice to learn and perform poses, breathing exercises, and meditations. To truly master these poses and breathing exercises, they must practice mindfulness and be present in the moment.
“Yoga therapy can help alleviate the stress and anxiety that drives impulsive behavior and help curb addiction.”
“Through careful breathing and body control, students can correct imbalances in the mind and body and learn how to control impulsive behaviors. In essence, yoga therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy share many key traits.”
Destination For Teens – HOW YOGA THERAPY HELPS CONTROL IMPULSIVE BEHAVIOR
Yoga also reduces impulsivity in kids. Impulsivity is often associated with increased stress and anxiety. As we mentioned earlier, yoga is great for reducing stress and anxiety in kids and adults! Yoga shares many elements with cognitive behavioral therapy that reduce impulsivity. For example, yoga can help children create better coping strategies and better emotionally regulate themselves. Similar to reducing impulsivity, yoga can also help teenagers curb addictions to smoking, alcohol, and drugs.
Finally, yoga also increases discipline and reduces impulsivity by acting as a positive outlet for kids to express themselves. In addition to reducing stress, this can reduce aggression improve self esteem, too!
Yoga Improves Kid’s Self-Esteem
Similar to creating a health and positive image, yoga also improves kid’s self-esteem. Yoga is great for beginners as it has many modifications. However, there are also many advanced poses too. This creates an opportunity for continual self-improvement and self-mastery. By learning and mastering poses over time, especially more difficult ones, kids will see their coordination, balance, and flexibility all improve. This empowers children and gives them confidence!
Linked to Higher Academic Performance and Classroom Behavior
As mentioned above, yoga increases kid’s memory, focus, concentration, self-esteem, discipline, bodily awareness, positive body image while also helping them manage and reduce stress, anxiety, and impulsivity.
Consequently, it should come as no surprise that yoga is directly linked to higher academic performance and classroom behavior.
Studies have shown that low-stress students perform better in the classroom, and yoga is proven to reduce stress. Similarly, yoga improves self-confidence, which is another indicator of academic performance. Yoga can also motivate kid’s to work harder and embrace challenges in school.
“Studies from Los Angeles to Jalandhar, India have shown that, children who practice Yoga, become more motivated as academic students. They begin to look at school in a new light, accepting the challenges of learning new concepts with open arms. Perhaps this is the result of a renewed confidence within their selves that they are smart enough and good enough to get the job done.”
Kids Yoga and Academic Performance – Yoga Teacher Training
Yoga Increases Children’s Strength, Balance, Flexibility, and Aerobic Capacity
The benefits of yoga for kid’s minds and bodies go hand in hand. For example, the physical poses themselves help activate the parasympathetic nervous system which literately relaxes the body. At the same time however, you also get the added benefit of also relaxing the mind. This is especially true when you combine yoga poses with meditation, visualization, chanting, and breathing techniques.
However, the direct physical benefits of yoga for kids cannot be understated. Similar to most forms of physical exercise, yoga helps increase kid’s aerobic capacity. This improves cardiovascular fitness and increases the heart’s ability to send blood and oxygen throughout the body. This is important, especially as kids grow into adulthood, as heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and many other developed countries.
Yoga is also one of the best activities for toddlers, kids, and teens to increase strength, flexibility, balance and coordination. These benefits also help improve muscle memory and reduce injury, especially as kids body’s grow and develop. Additionally, increased flexibility will also maintain spine health and can reduce back pain in adulthood.
Yoga Fosters Cooperation Among Peers In a Non-Competitive Environment
In yoga, there is no keeping score, point system, or teams. While yoga has many benefits for kids, it is one of the few physical activities that encourages cooperation rather than competition. Perhaps one of the biggest criticisms of other forms of physical activities is that team sports can foster aggression, bullying, and division.
Yoga, on the other hand, fosters compassion. At an early age, it teaches kids to strive to continually improve and become the best version of themselves, rather than comparing themselves to others. This helps them develop into caring and considerate adults.
Conclusion
While there are many activities kids can try, there are few that provide the physical and mental benefits of yoga. Yoga increases kid’s memory, focus, concentration, self-esteem, discipline, cooperation, bodily awareness, positive body image while also helping them manage and reduce stress, anxiety, competition, and impulsivity.
We live in a fast paced, hectic, and stressful world where kids often grow up too fast. Technology, social media, and screens mean we are constantly connected. It’s important they are not just physically active but also mindful, present, cooperative, and able to manage stress and anxiety.
Chances are that your toddlers, kids, and teens can greatly benefit from yoga. Have them try yoga and help them learn the skills to not just survive – but to thrive!
Sources
Toxic Stress: How the Body’s Response Can Harm a Child’s Development
Kids Yoga and Academic Performance
HOW YOGA THERAPY HELPS CONTROL IMPULSIVE BEHAVIOR
Tatjana Glogovac, Senior Contributor At L’Aquila Active
Learn more about Tatjana by reading her bio below.
Click on link below to meet L’Aquila Active’s entire team of experts, including university degrees, certifications, and credentials on yoga and meditation: