It’s not easy to be a kid these days. The peer pressure and the distractions children face nowadays can cause a lot of stress and can impact children’s health in a negative way, however, yoga can help your child to feel better and to relax while providing numerous health benefits at the same time.
How Can Yoga Help Children?
- Yoga can develop body awareness in children;
- Yoga can teach children how to use their bodies in a healthy way;
- Yoga helps children to deal with stressful situations;
- Yoga builds the concentration in children;
- Yoga increases confidence in children;
- Yoga creates a positive self-image in children’s minds;
- Yoga helps children to feel accepted in a group without a competition.
What Can Kids Learn During A Yoga Class?
Awareness Of The Breath
While practicing yoga, children do numerous breathing exercises that teach them how to connect with their bodies. Yoga can be energizing or relaxing and it can increase focus and reduce stress allowing children to be able to do their daily activities with ease.
How To Strengthen Their Bodies
Yoga builds strength and coordination and it helps children to digest food better and to maintain a healthy weight. Children can learn that yoga means more than stretching and that by practicing yoga on a regular basis they will not only be more flexible but also stronger and healthier.
How To Have Balance
Balancing yoga poses enables children to learn about the importance of staying focused and quiet in order to achieve something. Balancing poses promote stillness and inner strength and children can learn how many things they can achieve if they put their minds to it.
How To Be More Flexible
Children should learn that strong muscles are not enough if they want to move quickly without damaging their bones and joints. Increasing flexibility allows people to do more things and children should learn that yoga helps them to be more flexible and functional.
Awareness And Focus
Deep breathing creates awareness of the body and this gives children the chance of building a stronger connection between what they hear and what they do, allowing them to express themselves better and to build their confidence.
How To Relax
Yoga teaches children how to relax and how to stay focused on a single task. Young children can learn to relax by focusing on a single task during their yoga practice while older children can rest and relax longer with less structure.
How To Have Fun
Yoga classes can be extremely fun and we cannot deny this huge advantage. It is not mandatory to put the child through really tough yoga poses and asanas. There is always the option of doing something really fun. For instance, goat yoga is a lot of fun and is thoroughly enjoyed by children. You cannot go wrong with it.
Health Benefits Of Yoga For Children
Yoga Perfects Posture
Poor posture can cause back and neck pain but also muscle and joint problems and this is why it is so important to teach children from a very young age about the importance of having a good posture.
Yoga Strengthen The Bones
Lifting and supporting your own weight to strengthen the bones. Numerous yoga poses require you to support your weight and this is a great way to strengthen the bones for adults and children alike. Since yoga is also known for reducing stress hormones, it is believed that more calcium is retained in the bones.
Yoga Boosts Immunity
Children are exposed to viruses and bacteria every single day and it is important to help children to build strong immune systems that will fight off infections and diseases. While doing yoga, people contract and stretch their muscles, allowing organs to move around and to make the lymphatic system to work better to dispose of toxins and to fight infections and diseases.
Yoga Releases Limb Tension
After hours spent in front of a computer or at school at a desk, children, like us, build tension in their neck, muscles, shoulders, and wrists. Practicing yoga allows them to release some of that pressure and to relax easier.
Yoga Helps Children To Fall Asleep Faster
A good night sleep is important for children but not all children can fall asleep easily. Adults tend to believe that children do not face a stressful situation but that couldn’t be far from the truth. Whether they have a test they are scared of another important event, children can have high levels of stress which can lead to bad sleeping habits. Yoga helps children to release stress, fall asleep easier, and sleep better.