Taking the Pulse: The potential for assessing the impact of yoga and mindfulness programs on youth

Yoga and mindfulness programs are increasingly taught to youth in schools, community centers and juvenile justice facilities. Despite strong research on the benefits of such programs for adults, the impact on youth is only recently being evaluated. Our review of the research literature indicates that programs can positively impact students' stress/anxiety, depression, attention problems, self-esteem, and academic performance. Physical benefits include cardiovascular fitness, reduced body mass, improved motor skills/strength, and improved sleep. However, these research results are methodologically limited by small sample sizes, lack of appropriate controls, lack of randomization, and lack of long-term follow up. To assess the needed steps in program evaluation to advance the field, UCSF conducted telephone interviews and roundtable discussions with six youth-serving yoga and mindfulness programs in the San Francisco Bay Area. The programs were tailored to youth, teaching yoga and/or mindfulness. Program duration, teacher training and evaluation capacities varied widely. However, the programs expressed a strong interest in learning how to better “prove” the positive impact on participants. Based on our review of the literature and program interviews, we developed recommendations to advance the evaluation field, including the use of a logic model that combines the known benefits (outcomes) of yoga and mindfulness programs, with the steps required to achieve these benefits. Essential next steps for the yoga and mindfulness fields are to shift away from feasibility studies to focusing on robust evaluations that describe the characteristics (I.e., dosage, curriculum, teacher trainer standards) and impact of effective programs.