8 Benefits of Yoga for Kids

In a world where attention spans are decreasing by the year and apps, videos, and video games are eager to snatch your kids’ attention, the benefits of yoga for kids are endless. Yoga brings mindfulness into your kids’ life and helps them become more aware and present. For kids who have ADD or ADHD, the benefits are even greater. Wee Yogis offers low-cost, fun, interactive kids’ yoga classes and events that are easy to integrate into your child’s life.

Here are the top benefits of yoga for kids:

1. Expanding focus and awareness

Deep breathing and conscious, slow, expansive movement helps create awareness of kids’ bodies and physical spaces. They will develop postures, breathe better, and be empowered by a quiet sense of strength. Yoga helps kids build a strong connection between what they hear and what they do. And we all know that anyone who is more aware of themselves as an individual is more aware of their impact on their friends, family, community and strangers.

2. Healthy Body Image

Yoga helps children become more aware of their bodies and develop an appreciation of all their body is capable of. When children are able to build healthy body awareness at a young age, they are less likely to develop body issues as teenagers.

3. Healthy Stress Outlet

Kids carry more stress than you can imagine – and it comes out in various ways. Yoga’s intrinsic meditative nature has a calming, soothing quality. Even during more active flow parts of the practice, the focus is within. Getting to a place of such deep relaxation is one of the many benefits of yoga.

4. Flexibility and Lengthening

Yoga stretches out the body and makes it more flexible, so the body can move quickly without putting any pressure on the joints. By integrating breath and movement, muscles become warm and more flexible and build strength in a healthy, natural way.

5 . Build Strength

One of the less known benefits of yoga for kids is that the different yoga poses really build muscle, not just stretch out the body. Wee Yogis instructors explain the different muscles used in poses and incorporate games and sequences to build strength as well as body awareness and coordination. Strong bodies function at an optimal level, including a healthy body weight, better digestion, and protect the more fragile joints.

6. Balance

For any kid who struggles from attention issues (and which kid doesn’t, at least to some degree?) balancing poses teach children that with increased focus, you can increase attention naturally. Balancing poses develop an intrinsic strength, evoke a meditative feeling, and promote stillness and quieting of the mind. Balance is integral to all aspects of life – which makes this one of the most priceless benefits of yoga for kids.

7. Integration skills

Yoga sequences show kids how all our movements are a series of coordinated efforts between muscles, bones, joints and nerves. Awareness of these different aspects increase a child’s sense of integration in all the different aspects of their life.

8. Expression

Yoga gives kids a way to express themselves through their bodies. It’s like a new language, expressed through physicality.

Check out Wee Yogis yoga classes and events and discover the benefits of yoga for kids for yourself!