Yoga Therapy for Youth
Yoga therapy for our Youth is a wonderful positive practice to introduce during these transitional years as a preteen and teen.As children get older their mental, physical, emotional abilities and needs change. Introducing a Yoga practice during these significant growing years can be beneficial for your child in a variety of ways to help them with their mentally, emotionally and physically health.
Here are 6 ways in which a weekly yoga practice can benefit your growing child.
- Improve fitness and physical health.
Students participating in a yoga practice can develop a strong and positive connection to body awareness and movement. The postures and movements in a yoga practice can help improve posture and spine health, coordination, core strength, balance and flexibility. Also a wonderful physical cross training practice to help with performance in other activities your teen participates in. - Reduce stress and anxiety.
School can be a stressful environment with both academic and personal challenges. In a yoga practice with focuses on breath and awareness helps provide space for your teen to step back and take time for themselves. Developing powerful coping strategies to regulate their nervous system and their response to stress and anxiety in a calm and thoughtful manner. - Improve focus and school performance.
Teenage brains aren’t designed to sit in a classroom for eight hours every day. Add in hormones, sports, activities, friends and social media, and it’s easy to see why it can be hard for teens to focus. A weekly yoga practice can help give teens the tools to be present and centre their focus. Which helps improve their attention span, their behaviour, regulate energy and concentrate better throughout the day, helping their overall daily performance. - Improve self-esteem and body image
Puberty and peer pressure can often take a toll on a teens confidence which often creates struggles with self-esteem and body image. A regular yoga practice creates an accepting and safe environment, rooted in the principle of non-judgment. The practice helps you feel more connected to the changes the teen body is going through with acceptance and love for self. - Encourage creativity.
Yoga encourages creativity and playfulness, developing not just physical flexibility but the flexibility of the mind as well. - Develop discipline and self-regulation
To help one develop positive discipline a Yoga Therapy practice is taught with mindfulness and uses supportive inventional language which empowers you to make personal choices that are right for you personal well-being. Yoga has been found to help in all ages to reduce impulsivity, increase patience, and improve the ability to regulate nervous system responses.
* Yoga therapy and mindfulness practices can provide teens and preteens with the skills to navigate challenges and build a core long lasting foundation that benefits both the mind and body well beyond their teenage years.
Youth Yoga Classes will return this Spring – Stay tuned!
