Yoga is well renowned for the benefits you can achieve from practising it, but usually the focus is on adults. Would yoga bring benefits to children? In America, yoga is becoming increasingly popular.
There is now evidence to suggest that children who practise yoga can expect both improved physical and mental health.
So, in this piece we have a look into the benefits that children could experience from practising yoga.
Yoga Teaches Children Self Acceptance
Starting off with something that could be said to be one of the most important benefits of yoga, yoga can help teach children self-acceptance.
Since yoga is non-competitive and doesn’t require you to do anything but be with yourself, this can be very beneficial to children when growing up. They learn to just accept themselves as they are and at no comparison to anyone else.
Yoga Teaches Calming Techniques to Children
Growing up can be a very stressful time for children. There is a lot happening! If a child can learn calming techniques at a younger age, this will not only help them in dealing with mental and physical stressors during growing up, but these techniques will also stay with them into adult life, providing them with a steady foundation.
Yoga Supports Children’s Physical Health
Yoga offers many fantastic benefits for the body, with improvements in balance, endurance, strength and aerobic capacity.
In children, these are all really important physical traits to develop early and while they happen naturally, yoga can play an important role in assisting their development.
Not only that, when children practice yoga, the movements help them understand their body in a way that only moving all of the body can teach. These movements give them a better understanding of how their body works and what they are able to do with it.
Yoga Supports Positive Mental Health in Children
Tying in with teaching self acceptance and yoga techniques, yoga is great for all round mental positivity, which is great for everyone to have.
Research has also suggested that yoga can help improve focus in children and reduce anxiety and stress too.
Relaxation
Relaxation and yoga go hand in hand. We’re sure you know the struggles you can face when trying to relax, and this is no different for children either. Yoga provides an area in the brain that allows the mind to settle and slow down, which, in turn, can provide them with tools of resilience for now and later in life.
Yoga Can Enhance Focus in Children
Yoga is a great practice for encouraging focus, and this is also true for children. But, how does yoga actually facilitate focus?
When practising yoga, the idea is to focus on only the one thing you are doing, a certain yoga poses for example. Learning to focus on only thing completely and uninterrupted is a discipline and benefits many areas of life.
The importance of being focused
Focus is really important for learning, and this occurs when both sides of the brain are engaged in order to pay attention to whatever is being taught.
Relaxation techniques can help this happen, which is why yoga is the perfect accompaniment to help encourage focus.
Here at St Peters Prep, private school Devon, we believe that exercise is important for both mental and physical health, and yoga provides both benefits for children! For more information on how to help your children, read our blog!
