Monday, April 23, 2018
Children and School-Based Yoga
In this article, you will read about how Tulane University has been researching the effects of yoga on third-grade students. There was a group of students who practiced age-appropriate yoga and mindful techniques for 8 weeks. Read the article and tell me what you think of this type of practice with children. Do you think these types of alternative methods are appropriate for children of this age? Is this something that needs to be incorporated into more schools across the nation? What were the benefits of this program for the students and teachers?
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Personally I find yoga extremely hard to do, but I think it is a great stress reliever and way to take a moment for yourself. In yoga they practice a thing called mindfulness and meditation, this is where the person takes a moment and takes into account everything and nothing at the same time. They try to clear their mind while also focusing on breathing and just relaxing. So I definitely think that it would be very beneficial for those who express symptoms of anxiety, no matter what age. People tend to think that elementary kids do not have as much stress as those older than them and though that may be true, it does not mean that third graders do not have stress. Yoga incorporates physical activity into these young students’ lives and that is beneficial in many ways. These days children are not getting as much exercise as they should, so incorporating yoga, which can be physically challenging, into their morning routine, along with allowing their minds to relax. I do not think that this program should be for just third graders, I think everyone should participate. Starting good behaviors like this at a young age can be very helpful as the children get older and get even more stressed with everyday life.
ReplyDeleteThis article is discussing the affects of yoga on third graders. These students were exhibiting their anxiety in order to improve their well-being and emotional health. The students were previously scanned for anxiety disorders and were assigned to two different experimental groups. The control group was given regular treatment such as counseling. While the experimental group had treatment that included yoga and mindful activities. The results of this study shows that the students that received yoga and mindful activities significantly improved their anxiety and mental status compared to the group that just received counseling and normal care. The teachers also shared their opinions on the benefits of this treatment option saying that it is an accurate intervention. Personally, from this article, I believe this is a great idea for students who have anxiety. It is defiantly an appropriate alternative method to treat anxiety. Also from this study, I believe that this method should be implemented in schools to help students cope with their anxiety. Overall, I think that this study needs to be done more, so that researchers can know if this method is truly effective. However, if it is shown to be effective, then I think it should start to be used in schools.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing that I found super interesting and shocking was reading about how in today’s society, third graders are already having anxiety in their life. When I was that age I was only worried about snack time and wanting to read in class time. Children at that age shouldn’t be stressed out in the first place but in this day and age, and the was our school systems are, I can see it being possible. Reading the article made me wish that all schools now do it and that my school had done it when I was younger. I feel that taking yoga every morning as a part of a student’s school routine would be beneficial because as we get older more stress does occur and if we even had just 30 mins a day to learn something or do something that will help us handle stress would make it beneficial for schooling. Not many people know how to tackle stress in a calm matter and having this taught to us throughout school could help so many out when having to become an adult and have a busy, everyday work life. The third graders in this study were found to be more relaxed throughout the day and if its helping small children tackle anxiety, just imagine the benefits it could bring for everyone of all ages.
ReplyDeleteOver recent years it has been found that anxiety among students is increasing with an earlier age of onset due to familial, societal and institutional pressures to achieve high levels of academic success. With that being said, I think it is extremely important now more than ever for the school systems to find alternative stress relieving technique like the one being tested in this study. Yoga has been used for centuries as a way to establish mindfulness and bring peace to the person performing the activity. As was discussed it was found that children around third grade experience a higher level of anxiety because of the transition into greater academic pressure. Through this study it was found that elementary school aged kids benefitted emotionally from exposure to yoga. I personally think that yoga ed should be incorporated into more classrooms as a way to improve learning and overall student attitude.If the children were taught proper yoga techniques, the use of yoga may also help the students to establish a healthy fitness regime if they continue with the activity later in life. Yoga could also be a good source of discipline if incorporated into a daily classroom routine, something that is known to be important to have when teaching children.
ReplyDeleteThis article completely took me aback how soft our children are becoming in this society now.When I was a child all I cared about was recess, snacks, and naps. This is so absurd that studies show that children in the third grade and being "stressed out or getting anxiety". The tests have shown increases that yoga does increase psychological and emotional quality of life for children. Yoga has always been used to calm the mind and soul and bringing peace, but I personally don't believe that children so young are so stressed in their minds that they needs psychological help, yoga, or therapy and counseling at this age. Kids should enjoy life and not worry about anything but enjoy life as a kid with no responsibilities while they still can. If in PE classes the teacher chooses to have a session incorporating yoga that is fine, but to make it a national requirement for schools to have a yoga activity in elementary school I think is completely blown out of proportion. In High school teachers might think about offering yoga because more stress is build up due to tougher workload involving your future, with GPA, and ACT scores for seniors trying get into established colleges. This is just one study I am not on board with implementing this nationwide for children.
ReplyDeleteI think this test is interesting and a good idea, however I feel as though it should have been tested on an older age group, even though the researches found that third graders have stress and anxiety because the work is starting to become harder for them. However I feel as though kids that age don't really understand the stress and anxiety even if they are experiencing it. I do find it interesting that their psychosocial and emotional quality-of-life scores improved, but I think they would see more significant results if they did this with high school students or college students because they experience a lot more stress and anxiety, and every year it is just increasing, so if they did yoga with this group they would see a bigger spike in their results. However I do think it would be a good idea to do this with younger kids in elementary schools not so that they are really relieving stress, but so that at an early age they have a way of decreasing their stress and relaxing in a natural healthy way, that is good for the mind and body alike. So if they learn this at an early age they can continue it through high school and college and even in life and they would know the proper way of doing it, which would just help them in the long run in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though this is something that if definitely appropriate for children of this age, it helps those that are stressed and have anxiety get that relaxation that they need to help them focus on their studies and it could help with other things that the students are experiencing. For example it could possibly help with overly energetic children as it is a way for them to get some energy out throughout the day and the other health benefits associated with yoga will show in the students. This is for sure something that should be implemented in more schools nationwide, or at least be tested in more schools in different states so that the effects that doing yoga has can be seen on a larger scale and see if the same results happen. Benefits of this program for students and teachers include the children being more focused and attentive in class causing them to pay closer attention in class which means they will learn more and in the end do better on testing and overall learning. Also it benefits them in that it is a healthy way to deal with anxiety and stress that doesn’t involve any medications or scary visits with a counselor.
ReplyDeleteOver the past few years mental health issues, anxiety, and depression have all been increasing with early age. This stress is occurring because of the high levels of stress put on kids to perform well academically. I feel that with the increase in mental health issues, anxiety, and other things kids deal with daily, that now for then ever it is important that school systems find alternative ways for kids to cope with stress. Yoga has been used for decades to help relieve stress, promote peacefulness, and used to relax the body. I found this to be an interesting study because I was unaware that third graders had a high stress and anxiety level because the work is becoming harder and for competitive. However, I still think this was a good study. I think it would be a good idea for all school systems to invest in yoga or others ways to help relieve stress in young kids lives. I think this would be best for schools because it would help kids reduce stress levels at a younger age. Overall this study was very interesting and there are many benefits for the kids. A couple things that kids will benefit from is they will have a lower stress level and be more focused and relaxed for class. The best thing about this study is that overall this is a better way for kids to decrease stress levels and anxiety through there schooling.
ReplyDeleteI think this alternative method is appropriate for children on any age, with mostly all ages comes some sort of stress from school and the workload it brings. In baseball, we did yoga during the offseason and I found it to be very relaxing and help sooth my mind for the rest of the day. Stress relief is a big deal when it comes to learning, because it is hard to pay attention in class when so many other things are on the mind. I believe not only talking through your problems with a counselor, but also incorporating yoga in with some gym classes would be very beneficial to reducing the stress of any individual. In their study it seemed that doing yoga and having the relaxed time was beneficial to the experimental group. I believe incorporating this into every school across the nation would benefit children greatly and obviously lead to children with less anxiety. I also believe this should be incorporated into grade levels even higher than that because yoga allows for one’s brain to relax and reduce unnecessary stress. It benefits students and teachers because it allows for the students to relax and focus better in class. While focusing better in class it allows them to gain more knowledge and do better on homework and tests.
ReplyDeleteYoga is a great thing and after reading this article it has become a great thing for third grade student’s to do that helps relieve their anxiety and other things that may concern them. Yoga is a great thing for any age to do because it helps relieve stress, anxiety, and other things everyone is going through in everyday life. Alternatives to any medication is a great thing in my mind because it allow the person to heal without putting medication in their body. It give people a chance to stay drug free if they chose to. I believe that all school should have the option to stop class and be able to give the child a chance to stop and breathe, which helps relieve anything they are going through. Yoga is a beneficial thing if you do it correctly and know how far you can push yourself. Yoga is a very relaxing thing especially if students start it young and keep up with it throughout their years in school. You can do yoga for 30 min. a day and that is enough for you to relax and center yourself to get through the day. Yoga is a good alternative to having students go to psychologist and put on medication to deal with their problems and some done even do that and they just bottle them up and never expel what is bothering them and end up exploding or becoming depressed. In conclusion, yoga would be a great alternative to anything in my perspective.
ReplyDeleteMindfulness and meditation are helpful to most people at just about any age. I wish my school allowed us to have yoga time. I think that allotting a time of the school day for children to calm down and relax is just as important as physical education. Stress can cause you to overthink, have panic attacks, and have unrestful sleep. While these symptoms may not be seen as much in younger children, I believe that if we start teaching children to take time to calm down and relax and handle stress, they will be able to do so even better as they grow into adults. That would be one of the most valuable skills you can teach anyone. I still have issues with this. With that being said, this type of intervention can also benefit the teachers. They can sit down and meditate with their students, calm down and continue their day refreshed. Or if the kids are led by a specific yoga instructor their normal teacher can get more work done, prepare the rest of the day, or even just enjoy a small amount of silence. I know I would. The article talked about how this specific study improved upon psychosocial and emotional quality-of-life scores for the kids who had the yoga. I think that this should be implemented everywhere!
ReplyDeleteThis study done by Tulane University was very neat to see how the results ended up. The article talks about the study and how they looked at third graders and how there anxiety and stress levels were changed after doing yoga. The overall conclusion of the study stated by Tulane University, said that, “participating in yoga and mindfulness activities at school helped the third graders showing anxiety improve their well being and emotional health.” It can be hard to go to school when you are young or for that matter at any age. A lot of stress is involved with all the work, and school isn’t the most enjoyable experience to be apart of. Taking a break and doing yoga and exercises would most definitely help calm your mind and improve your mental health. The sessions that the study did for the third graders included breathing exercises, guided relaxation and traditional yoga poses. Alessandra Bazzano from the study in the article said that, “the intervention improved psychosocial and emotional quality of life scores of students compared to those who just had standard care.” I think that doing yoga throughout the day at school would be very beneficial to anyone at any age. It might even be beneficial to the teachers too. Going and working at a school can be very stressful. If there is time throughout the day were you can just relax, it will help your mindset and potentially help you perform better in school in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteIn this article it talked about how yoga can be beneficial from the younger generation. In my own opinion I have to yoga for soccer and yes it does feel nice after you are done but personally I think it is very difficult to do. But if yoga is done more often than just once a week I think the students will get use to it and it will become a lot easier. Doing yoga can reduce stress and anxiety while making the individual flexible. A lot of people tend to forget that kids who are in elemartay can have stress also and doing yoga I think can be very useful for them to clear their minds and allow them to focus a lot better while being active at the same time. I also believe that this can allow the students to act in a better behavior and maybe even let them focus more on school and their grades. I think it’s a good idea to incorporate yoga into elementary schools and maybe hopefully expand this into middle schools and high schools. If adults can do it at this time and age I don’t see why we can’t start kids off a lot sooner.
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