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Yoga provides socio-emotional and health benefits to students of all ages and levels. It is also highly beneficial for children in lower socio-economic groups.

The conversation of teaching animates the yoga community, of course. Taking the dialog a step further, we have an intersectional opportunity in considering yoga as a part of—as a pedagogy in—the school system. With education globally upended by COVID, 2020 has proven fruitful for such a conversation. Yoga Alliance’s Director of Yoga Research and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School Dr. Sat Bir Singh Khalsa and I had much to discuss as four times we talked about the scientific research on yoga in schools.

Though in its nascency as a field, the scientific research on yoga and schools already provides supportive evidence for the benefits of yoga within schools and for students. Whether for mental clarity or stress relief, or for stretching postures and stronger asana (think Surya Namaskar in gym class), yoga can address and improve many aspects of students’ and teachers’ lives.

Four talks: data and advocacy

Dr. Khalsa highlighted more than 40 peer-reviewed publications, many of which have been published in the last two years and are available on our curated site resource. In our first two talks, he covered the research on yoga for students, especially those in K-12 populations. He emphasized the significant mental health benefits seen in regular yoga practice as a framework for understanding how to support students during COVID. The second part of our conversations, “The Scientific Research on Yoga for Students of All Ages and Levels,” Part 1 and Part 2, covered advocacy for yoga and schools (Part 1) and the research behind its benefits for students—and administrators—of all levels in all types of institutions (Part 2). 

Mental health isn’t all of it. Students face challenges in every area of life, including poor nutrition, lack of exercise, and attention problems. That’s why, in recent years, the scientific and education communities have organized and collaborated around the concept of educating “the whole child.” Read more from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and The Collaborative for Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), who have created strategies that help us consider the overall health and the social/emotional wellbeing of the school-aged child.

Scientific research, Dr. Khalsa said, has measures to observe how, if at all, yoga improves the challenges (see chart), both from self-reported, i.e., qualitative characteristics, and from biologically quantified characteristics, i.e., measurements of heart rate variability (HRV), blood pressure, salivary cortisol (a measure of stress), body-mass index (BMI), and others. 

As promising as much of the findings so far are, research on yoga in schools is just beginning to be able to ask meaningful questions beyond the simple, first ones that research always starts with: What yoga does, how much of it we might need, and when it should be offered. “It’s a learning curve,” Dr. Khalsa said. “We’re just getting started.”

Effects of yoga have also been studied in medical students, including nurses, and in teachers.

In our September talks, we surveyed what yoga is actually being taught in a variety of educational institutions, not just through groups like bentonlearning and Kripalu’s RISE Program, whose efforts we discussed at length in a 90-minute expert teacher panel on the yoga in schools. Dr. Khalsa also catalogued a top-level list of the studies showing benefits throughout the educational system to manage different types of stress and overall well being.

Three citation highlights

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