Yoga for Kids

Bidyut K. Bose runs an organization called Niroga, offering classes to approximately 2,000 young people a week at homeless centers, juvenile halls, group homes and low-resource schools around the Bay Area.

Depression is a serious illness—it can kill. Treatment for depression is therefore vital. However, addressing and treating depression in young people comes with an extra level of complexity. Because the adolescent brain physiology differs from that of mature adults, children’s brains respond to antidepressants differently—and in some cases, fatally.

With a growing body of research highlighting the efficacy of yoga for stress and yoga for anxiety/depression in adults, an increasing number of teachers and school officials have decided to implement yoga for children—and with impressive success.

The Los-Angeles-based Accelerated School has introduced regular yoga classes to help their students cope with the overwhelming stress faced by inner city kids, as well as to improve fitness, grades, discipline and self-esteem.

Kids at the Tuscon High Magnet School collected signatures to save their yoga program, arguing that yoga offered more than PE classes, because of its mind-body focus. The students felt that yoga had been therapy for relieving stress, bringing greater clarity and calmness, and learning life lessons, such as patience.