Yoga Calm users know from experience how it can help children with ADHD. Yet, it is always good to see and know that scientific evidence also supports this. Such evidence was fully highlighted in a new systematic review published earlier this month, echoing a similar review published just a year ago in the same journal, Curéus.
Yoga and meditation positively affect various symptoms in children with ADHD, including attention, hyperactivity and impulsive behavior. If done in family group sessions, it also benefited parents and family dynamics, suggesting a potential option for family therapy. Additionally, other psychological symptoms, such as anxiety or low self-esteem, appear to be positively influenced by these interventions.
The stronger the evidence base, the better, especially when it comes to getting buy-in from administrators and families. Yet studies like this also often contain something that’s just a little…well…boring: the characterization of yoga as a mindfulness approach, as if yoga had developed separately from other practices of mindfulness, just one way among many to “do mindfulness”.
The reality is different.
Mindfulness comes through yoga
Yoga predates the modern mindfulness movement by thousands of years. Its origins date back to ancient India, where it was practiced as a way of life aimed at unifying the mind, body and spirit.
Buddha himself was a yogi who chose to focus primarily on meditation, thus illustrating that mindfulness and meditation have always been an integral part of the broader yoga tradition. In fact, they are part of the 8 branches of yoga, in which self-discipline practices such as asanas (physical poses) and pranayama (breathing) lay the foundations for dharana (concentration) and dhyana (meditation or contemplation).
The rise of the mindfulness movement has led to a narrow interpretation of yoga. Meditation and mental exercises take priority over the physical and ethical dimensions essential to traditional yoga.
This has resulted in the erroneous belief that yoga is simply a form of mindfulness practice, rather than a complete system including mindfulness.
Movement and mindfulness
Just as some see yoga as another form of mindfulness, others see it as another form of exercise. Both of these are oversimplifications and remove the essential features of yoga that make it such a powerful tool for supporting mental, behavioral, and physical health.
The connection to community and ethics creates a safe environment in which physical practices can be carried out. Physical practices, on the other hand, can be seen as a kind of rehearsal for the meditation and contemplation to come.
Without all these other branches of yoga, mindfulness becomes a difficult pursuit.
Just think about how difficult it can be sometimes to calm your mind, to keep intrusive thoughts at bay with brain power alone. Now imagine how much harder it is for a child with ADHD. Yet once they begin to improve their self-regulation by channeling their distracted energy into physical poses or controlled breathing, they begin to understand how to find stillness and calm.
At this stage, more purely cognitive activities such as mindfulness and meditation may be effective.
Yoga prepares the way.