Benefits of Yoga for Middle School Students

A growing number of adolescents have multiple health issues develop at a younger and younger age which include depression, anxiety, obesity, type-2 diabetes, attention-deficit disorders, and other conditions. This study involved teaching yoga to middle school students(7th grade) two times a week for nine months (entire academic school year) to 20 students. Results were compared with 20 other students from the same school in the same grade who acted as a control group. Measures included resting heart rate, blood pressure, height, weight, well-being, and flexibility measures. Results showed significant improvements in all mental health items, blood pressure, and weight for the yoga group versus the control group. Overall yoga seemed to have a very strong effect on the health of middle school students and helped students address many of the growing health issues that children face as they go through adolescence. Future study should replicate this program by tracking students for multiple years to examine long term effects of yoga on adolescents and increase the size of the sample for this intervention.