Yoga is beneficial not only for adults but has proven to be just as helpful to children and teens. It can make a positive impact on children mentally and physically. Through yoga, children can develop essential skills that are needed for everyday life. Here are seven impactful benefits that yoga can have on a child.
Yoga Helps Children Manage Anxiety
Yoga combined with controlled breathing reduces anxiety and stress in children while improving mood and functioning. Moving through different yoga poses will help to encourage children to focus on regulating and smoothing out their breathing as it gets heavier. When a child brings their focus to their breathing, it can help them let go of worry and fear. Yoga evokes the relaxation repose, allowing both the body and mind to gain a sense of calm and ease.
Yoga Improves Children’s Emotional Regulation
Yoga offers tools for children to pay attention in a very different way. Children will most likely be shaky as they hold a pose, especially if they are a beginner. Through multiple attempts and further practice, the wobble will gradually subside. The child will then begin to become deeply rooted in the pose. To accomplish this stillness, a child has to filter out their outer world and tune into their inner world, continually adjusting areas of their body. Children will start to recognize their body’s signals and learn to respond better in different situations outside of yoga.
Yoga Boosts Children’s Self-Esteem
Children better understand where they belong in this world as yoga expands their sense of wonder and curiosity. Yoga improves a child’s strong sense of self by developing their perspective of all they can amount to and achieve. A yoga teacher can guide a child through a pose, but it’s the child who has to do the work. Once a child can master the asana, it will boost their confidence and self-esteem.
Yoga Increases Children’s Concentration and Memory
When practicing an asana, a child must concentrate on just that pose, and by doing so, they are developing a longer retention span. Coordinating breath with movement requires children’s attention as they remember when to inhale and exhale. Yoga requires children to recognize different poses and moves, which will help build their memorization skills.
Yoga Develops Children’s Strength and Flexibility
Yoga can help to support healthy growing bodies because children learn to use their muscles in new ways. Children discovering new ways to use their bodies through yoga will give them more strength, flexibility, and balance, which will support children’s bones and joints to grow healthfully and lessen the chances of injury.
Yoga Increases Children’s Body Awareness and Mindfulness
Children have the opportunity to understand their bodies and the space around them better as they explore through different yoga movements and poses. Once children understand their awareness, they will become more mindful of themselves and all that surrounds them. Increasing their understanding of what developments they can control.
Yoga Teaches Children Discipline and Reduces Impulsivity
Yoga can help to ease the testing and busyness of a child’s world by giving them an actual outlet to be themselves and connect with their peers. Yoga allows children to have better control over their body and mind, developing a disciplined mindset. Through practicing challenging poses and working on getting better, children will learn how to respond differently to uncomfortable and sometimes difficult situations in the real world.
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Jillian McMorrow is a certified Yoga Instructor experienced with all ages. She enjoyed practicing yoga on her own for many years. As she began to understand the depth of yoga and its many healing benefits, she felt called to deepen her knowledge through trainings and went onto teaching others. Her passion in life is to inspire others to live a life that nourishes their mind, body, and spirt. In her spare time Jillian enjoys getting out into nature, learning new things, and spending time with loved ones.
