Emotional Learning and Growth

One of the things that makes Valentine’s Day such a unique holiday is that it’s the only one that doesn’t commemorate an event or honor a person or the passage of time. It’s about a feeling: love.

 

hint of plum/Flickr

And it can be a little emotionally overwhelming, especially for kids, as they’re still learning about their feelings. As educators, parents, counselors, therapists or others who work with children, it’s important for us to both acknowledge kids’ emotions and teach them ways of handling them.

Here, I think back to what I wrote last year about an experience with one of my Yoga Calm groups – one that showed the stress that such an emotionally loaded day such as Valentine’s can have on kids and an activity we came up with for helping them manage that stress. Jim and I would like to share it with you again in hopes that it will inspire you to come up with your own activities for making this Valentine’s Day an opportunity for emotional learning and growth for the kids you work with.

And if it does, please share your story about it in the comments section!

- Lynea Gillen

 

Recently, a group of five fifth grade boys in one of my Yoga Calm groups said they had something “really important to talk with me about.” It had “something to do about” their feelings.

Over the course of the year, these boys had gradually opened up about all sorts of things in our groups, from bullying to troubles with parents and siblings. Sometimes they’d cry and, most endearingly, support each other when they cried – something very hard for boys this age to do when peer and social expectations are for them to be tough.

“What’s going on,” I asked them.

They replied that they were “really stressed.” When I asked why, they said, “It’s Valentine’s day.”

“Valentine’s day?” I responded with a bit of surprise.

“Yes, the girls are asking for cards, but we don’t know what to write!” explained one boy. “We don’t know how to do Valentines.”

Trying not to smile or laugh, I asked if some girls were easier to talk to than others, thinking a friendship lesson might be in order. But I knew that wasn’t where we were going as soon as one boy said, “The beautiful ones are harder to talk to.”

“And there are a lot of beautiful girls,” added another.

Maintaining my composure, I asked if I could ask the some girls from the afternoon Yoga Calm class if they had some Valentine’s advice for the boys. “No!” they said emphatically.

“What if it’s done anonymously?” They looked at each other, then gave the O.K.

My girls’ Yoga Calm group met later that day, and during the end-of-session relaxation, I asked if I could ask an important question – one they could answer only by listening to their hearts. I told them that there were some boys who really needed advice on Valentine’s Day. At first, the girls snickered but then gave their answers:

1. Tell the girl how you really feel about her.
2. Don’t ask her to be your Valentine if you don’t know her.
3. Tell her she has nice hair and eyes – girls like to hear that.
4. Don’t use a scrawny voice.
5. Act formal – and do it where no one else can hear.
6. Don’t ask in front of your friends, as this puts pressure on her.
7. Ask her in person instead of a letter.
8. Give a compliment or two, but don’t smother her with them.
9. Don’t ask twice.
10. Say “Be Mine” on the card.

Perhaps, this would be good advice for all, young and old!

The New Year, Chaos & Beauty

Update of post originally published January 12, 2009

 

As 2009 winds down, we look to the beginning of 2010. As with all transitions, the end of a cycle presents an interesting challenge. It’s a rich time for reflection but also a potential trap for self-criticism.

We mention this as many of you have undoubtedly had challenging moments teaching Yoga with children. And those working on certification may also run into some pretty strong self criticism, especially as you videotape your sessions. This is normal.

To truly harvest the power of this time of endings and beginnings, we have found that the yogic process of Swadyaya (self-study) – taught in the Wellness 1 workshop – must be balanced with equal amounts of compassion and understanding for ourselves.

So, as opposed to creating New Year’s resolutions with their often implied judgments (e.g., I am out of shape, I need to do this…or that), we like to reframe our commitment in terms of what can we do to bring our gifts and dreams into better resolution or focus – much like a photographer focusing their camera to bring out the inherent beauty of a scene.

As teachers, we understand that the process of growing has ups and downs, good days and tough ones. Neurologically, learning something new requires some initial chaos as our systems are challenged to make new connections. It’s often a messy process, but ultimately a fascinating one.

We often use the following graphic to depict the importance of looking for the trend of growth instead of the daily ups and downs that occur with our students (and ourselves!):

Teaching Yoga Calm certainly reflects this growing process. Lynea put it well when, in an interview on KATU, she said that at first, teaching yoga to kids “was a nightmare.” But as it was with us, we’re sure that as you stick with it, you will start to experience those moments of magic – when children speak from their hearts, when they begin to support each other, when they begin to share their gifts and develop a peaceful strength.

With practice and continued effort, these moments become more and more the norm. A positive trend develops. There are still “good” days and “bad,” but the practice of compassionate self-study, Swadyaya begins to bear fruit.

School-Based Yoga & the Religion Issue

We recently ran across an interesting blog post by a mother who grew concerned when her daughter told of her class doing yoga at school – “not because I was opposed to the movement,” she writes, but because the particular practice involved activities that she considered “meditation.”

As I brushed her hair, unsnarling the tangles within it, I had an important conversation with Elisabeth. I let her know that I felt uncomfortable with this kind of yoga….that it began as a form of worship to another god, and that we are not to be emptying our minds or allowing others to tell us what to meditate upon, rather, we are to fill it with things of the Lord. I fully understand that we are in the public school and cannot expect them to cater to our beliefs, so as a family, we needed to problem-solve as to how we would respond. This was a time that we would need to draw a line and make a stand for our daughter and our faith. Together, we discussed the options….

While the daughter chose an option that included meditation on Bible verses during the meditation time, this ended up being unnecessary after the parent and teacher spoke together and came to an agreement that seems positive for all concerned:

Elisabeth’s teacher is a kind, young, wonderful woman. And as I laid out our dilemma before her, I told her that as a family, we try to stay away from yoga or anything that would ask us to think about spirituality in a way that is not in line with our faith. In that moment, she stopped me and apologized for not having thought the implications through. Would I rather it not be called yoga? With a smile hidden by the phone’s receiver, I replied that it wasn’t the name, or the movement that bothered me, it was the meditation. She completely understood and explained that because PE had been reduced this year, she needed these wiggly children to have some additional movement in the classroom. One of the moms happened to teach yoga, and volunteered her time to lead it. What the teacher had originally wanted for the children was the stretching. What had been brought in was the meditation as well.

I explained that I understood completely, and that I agreed that the children needed the additional exercise. However, as long as the meditation was involved, we would need to find another alternative for Elisabeth. I spelled out the options, making it clear that I didn’t want to disrupt the classroom in any way. After asking her opinion about which approach would be best, she said that she didn’t want Elisabeth to feel excluded or singled out. Her suggestion? She would talk to the mom and ask that all meditation be removed and that the exercise would be limited to the stretching. “Would you and Elisabeth be okay with that?”, she asked. Would we? You betcha! She promised to monitor the situation and that she expected Elisabeth to communicate with her if it ever crossed a line that she felt uncomfortable with.

We quote this at length for a couple of reasons. For one, this is one of the most thoughtful posts we’ve yet run across on the Christian objection to yoga and provides a reasonable and rational model for making those objections known. We commend the mother for taking those concerns to the teacher – and the teacher for working with the mother to ensure that the practice of yoga in the classroom in no way infringed on anyone’s personal faith or spiritual practice.

The post also highlights why, in developing Yoga Calm, it was so important for us to make it a wholly secular program. It uses no Sanskrit, meditation, chanting or religious concepts. Children are never asked to empty their minds or to think or say anything other than, “I am strong; I am in control; I can do it; I can be responsible.” Consequently, in our seven years of teaching it to children and with nearly one thousand teachers currently using Yoga Calm in public schools, we have had very few instances of teachers, staff, administrators or parents objecting to its use.

Of course, yoga, in and of itself, is not a religion. This confusion arose in our culture because Yoga evolved over thousands of years in the context of the spiritual and religious traditions of India. The practices of Yoga were appropriated into most of the different religious traditions of the East. When these teachings were first transmitted in the West, they were often taught by teachers who were also practicing one of the many forms of Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism. The pure teachings of Yoga were therefore often mixed with the cultural and religious associations of the particular teacher.

Over the years, new styles were developed and added so that today, 17 million Americans currently use some form of it in a wide variety of settings, from professional sports programs to health clubs, hospitals to churches and synagogues. Indeed, there are many expressly Christian adaptations of yoga. For instance, Catholic priest and certified Kripalu yoga teacher Father Thomas Ryan has a number of books and DVDs on the subject, including Reclaiming the Body in Christian Spirituality and Let Your Body Be Your Prayer. Many other books likewise teach a Christ-centered yoga, including titles such as Yoga for Christians, Holy Yoga: Exercise for the Christian Body and Soul and Invitation to Christian Yoga.

Nor are school-based yoga programs restricted to public schools but can be found in places like Aurora, Colorado’s Regis Jesuit High School. As a feature in the Denver Post put it earlier this year,

How does yoga…fit into the curriculum at a Catholic prep school?

“Ultimately, it goes back to the definition of yoga, which is unification, yoking of body/mind. That has everything to do with the Jesuit idea of Cura personalis (care of the individual),” said Missy Johnson, the school’s World Language department chair and one of two yoga teachers.

Regis boys in grades 9 through 12 do not chant, but they do meditate.

“Over the four years I’ve taught yoga at the school, only a couple of parents have been concerned – especially about the meditation aspect,” Johnson said. “I remind them that meditation was important to St. Ignatius (of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order) and other Catholic mystics.”

Indeed, when schools are looking at adding any new activity, a key consideration is to determine its appropriateness, not just lump it into a category because of its name or to disqualify it because something like it once was used in a religious context. In fact, if one-time spiritual or religious practice were the criterion for disallowing an activity in public schools, we would have to stop activities such as choir, lacrosse and character education programs. Even writing classes would have to be banned, for they have their roots back in the day when only monks were taught to write so they could transcribe bible and hymn verses.

Thus, when the religious issue comes up, we invite administrators, teachers, parents and other interested parties to review Yoga Calm thoroughly, considering it on its own merits and proven benefits to children.

Learn more at yogacalm.org.

The Economy, Kids & Stress

Since the onset of the current economic crisis, much has been discussed and written about how its effects are not just financial but psychological, as well. And as a recent New York Times article reminds us, they affect children just as much as adults.

Children, especially, have become hidden casualties, often absorbing more than their parents are fully aware of. Several academic studies have linked parental job loss — especially that of fathers — to adverse impacts in areas like school performance and self-esteem.

* * *

A recent study at the University of California, Davis, found that children in families where the head of the household had lost a job were 15 percent more likely to repeat a grade. Ariel Kalil, a University of Chicago professor of public policy, and Kathleen M. Ziol-Guest, of the Institute for Children and Poverty in New York, found in an earlier study that adolescent children of low-income single mothers who endured unemployment had an increased chance of dropping out of school and showed declines in emotional well-being.

We are not born knowing how to deal with stress, especially the psychological kind. Rather, this is a skill we learn, most commonly by observing others. Thus, it is not surprising that children pick up on stress cues demonstrated by parents.

 

lanuiop/Flickr

As we discuss in Yoga Calm for Children, some stress, of course, can be positive – a kind of motivating factor. But if the stress goes on too long, the stage is set for physical illness. As Robert Sapolsky shows in his book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, although stressors – even massive or chronic ones – don’t automatically lead to illness, they do increase the risk of disease. Health risks include compromised immune system function, inhibited growth and even death of brain cells in the hippocampus; osteoporosis; cardiovascular disease; neck, shoulder, and back pain; rheumatoid arthritis; asthma; depression; and diabetes.

In children, emotional and physical development may be impaired. And unhealthy ways of reacting to and interacting with the world may become entrenched. Some examples of such maladaptive behaviors and other coping devices are described in the Times article:

Paul Bachmuth’s 9-year-old daughter, Rebecca, began pulling out strands of her hair over the summer. His older child, Hannah, 12, has become noticeably angrier, more prone to throwing tantrums.

* * *

When Rebecca began pulling her hair out in late summer in what was diagnosed as a stress-induced disorder, she insisted it was because she was bored. But her parents and her therapist — the same one seeing her parents — believed it was clearly related to the job situation.

The hair pulling has since stopped, but she continues to fidget with her brown locks.

The other day, she suddenly asked her mother whether she thought she would be able to find a “good job” when she grew up.

Hannah said her father’s unemployment had made it harder for her to focus on schoolwork. She also conceded she had been more easily annoyed with her parents and her sister.

At night, she said, she has taken to stowing her worries away in an imaginary box.

“I take all the stress and bad things that happen over the day, and I lock them in a box,” she said.

Then, she tries to sleep.

How stress affects an individual depends upon the person’s genetic makeup, experience with stress, and how he or she has learned to cope with it. Children under acute or chronic stress may exhibit any of a wide variety of symptoms, many of which are readily observable by parents, teachers, counselors, physicians, and others who regularly interact with children. Obviously, any symptoms of chronic stress should prompt inquiry and possible action to alleviate their causes. If left unattended, they can become impediments to learning, create additional challenges in classroom management and set the stage for long-term health problems.

However, no matter what the source, all children will benefit from learning how to handle their stress in positive, proactive ways – to become stress-hardy, as illustrated in the graphic below.

 

 

From its roots in a therapeutic context, Yoga Calm’s tools were developed to directly and comprehensively address the threats to children’s health by teaching lifelong stress management and social/emotional skills. The approach is effective with a wide range of children, and adults too – further expanding yoga’s definition of “union” – and is now playing a catalytic role in the continuing evolution of school-based yoga interventions.

Learn more at yogacalm.org.

For further reading:

• “Stress-Proofing Kids Through Yoga” (PDF), Natural Awakening, August 2008
• “Secrets of Healthy Kids” and related yoga activities, Natural Solutions, September 2009

5 Tips to Teach Kids with ADHD Better Focus & Self-Control

Recently, Good Morning America ran a segment on how – and why – more doctors are recommending yoga for young patients. One situation in which yoga is increasingly recommended is for children diagnosed with ADHD, as it is well recognized that yoga-based activities of all kinds can be extremely effective in helping kids learn how to focus and self-regulate.

 

 

We see this efficacy regularly in our work with children – Lynea’s at the school where she is a counselor, and our work together in conducting children’s classes at a clinic. And because so many other teachers, counselors, occupational therapists and other adults who work with children are regularly faced with the special challenges of working with kids diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, we found it beneficial to create special Yoga Calm trainings focused on ways of meeting those challenges. (Parents, of course, find these workshops invaluable, as well!)

We teach the ADHD workshops with Jeffrey Sosne, PhD, a clinical Psychologist and Director of The Children’s Program. Widely recognized as one of Portland, Oregon’s leading authorities on ADHD, Jeff is the author of two practical guides for parents and school personnel: The ADHD Notebook and The Anger Notebook. Together, we cover Dr. Sosne’s strategies and games for working with ADHD and show how Yoga Calm activities – both the physical yoga and the social/emotional games – can be used to help nurture self-control and focus in kids for whom such things have been difficult.

Here are five of the tips we teach for doing so:

Practice Making Eye Contact

Eye contact helps children show that they are interested and paying attention. A lack of eye contact leads to “divided attention,” which makes it harder to focus and follow directions.

To practice “shifting” attention, introduce activities in which the children must switch between two (or more) adults giving signals or eye contact for directions (e.g., Steal the Bacon). Also, parents can get closer to their children when they are talking or giving directions, and stop speaking if their kids aren’t maintaining eye contact. If necessary, parents can schedule time to practice eye contact by having their child watch them as they move about the room while reading a story to their youngster. As the child improves, he or she can practice while learning to look away from distractions strategically placed in the room.

Model and Instill a Can-Do Attitude

In workshops, we use different games (e.g., Jenga) and positive self talk (e.g., “I am in control,” “I can do it,” “I can be responsible.”) to illustrate how a positive attitude improves performance and how helpful it is to decide what you can do instead of what can’t be done.

At home, parents can encourage their children to decide what they can do to help before dinner or what they can clean up before going to a movie. We will not respect tasks that are accomplished with a negative attitude, and we value accomplishment of reasonable goals that have been set by the child more than tasks that we have defined and the children have reluctantly completed. Positive self-talk should also be encouraged, leading children to focus on their strengths and accomplishments, nurturing a sense of self-mastery.

Practice Listening and Giving Feedback

There are lots of games you can play with children that require them to listen and to give feedback in a calm, clear manner. For instance, in workshops, we may play Hot and Cold, in which players give each other feedback about finding a hidden object. To find the object, of course, the child who is searching for it must listen, evaluate and respond to the feedback given, while those giving the feedback must do so clearly.

You can build opportunities for reflection into any game or activity, and, of course, give compliments after activities done well. In group situations, Yoga Calm’s Compliment Game can be an especially fun and effective way of learning how to give and receive praise. And it provides another opportunity to reinforce the importance of eye contact!

Practice Stillness

There are many activities in life that require staying in control and not going too fast. To teach this, you can have children participate in several activities that create a bit of excitement and then challenge the kids to stay calm and go slowly to be successful.

The Yoga Calm Mat Tag activity can provide just such a challenge. When any of the children get too excited or out of control, simply ask them to sit down. Once they have shown they can calm down, they may re-join the activity. During any activity, if a high level of chaos or excitement is reached, just stop until everyone is calm, or remind the children to say something to themselves like, “Go slow, easy, easy,” to help them think about staying calm.

Encourage Setting Goals and Making Plans

A goal is something we want to work toward, while a plan is the strategy used to get to the goal. For this concept, we will do some activities several times to work on adding parts to a plan to lead to a more accomplished goal. For example, we may ask students to do a number of increasingly difficult tasks involving tapping a balloon in the air: using just one finger, using only the feet, behind the back and so on. Because the tasks become more difficult, we stop after a child cannot complete the challenge and come up with plans that could help make reaching that goal easier. The children realize that sometimes they needed several points in their plan to be able to reach their goal.

Parents can work with their children at home on the idea of setting a goal and coming up with a plan to reach it. We suggest making a chart with a diagram of a sun with many rays coming off it. Inside the sun, write the goal; in the rays, parts of the plan that will be followed in reaching that goal.

 

To learn more about helping children with ADHD:

• Buy and watch Dr. Sosne’s ADHD DVD
• Attend a Yoga Calm ADHD workshop (next scheduled for Portland, OR; Feb. 6-7, 2010)
• Find an ADHD class at The Children’s Program

Focusing that Wild Halloween Energy

Originally published October 31, 2008

 

Halloween can be a wonderful time for children to explore their imaginations. Or, as many teachers and parents can attest, it can be a nightmare of sugar-fueled over-excitement and big emotions. There’s nothing wrong with “big energy”and excited children, of course. They just need to learn when it’s appropriate, where to “channel it” and how to turn it on and off. So in our Yoga Calm classes at The Children’s Program and at school, we prepare students for the big day with several activities that help them practice shifting gears and calming themselves.

While waiting for all of our kids to show up for today’s Yoga Calm class at The Children’s Program, we played Mat Tag, where children practice shifting from active to calm states. Its a great way to run off a little energy before class while learning important skills. Then we talked about how around Halloween our bodies get very excited, and how we need to learn to move from excited to calm to prevent ourselves from getting in trouble.

We started out with activities that were regulating and calming, such as Hoberman breathing, Pulse Count and Volcano Breath. Then we practiced Mat 20 to a drum beat, with students holding each pose for four beats. We have found this to be very regulating, and if the child does a good job of leading, then they have the honor of beating the drum for the next student leader. Compliments for the student leaders give children an opportunity to reflect on what they did well.

We then moved to Activate/Relax Walk, where students shift from a relaxed walk to a yoga pose. This was a good preparation activity for practicing how to get under control for the upcoming Archetype Game. We shifted from activated to relaxed, and the kids had to do it several times without disruption before moving on to the game.

Then we gave them each a glow stick, gave firm direction about how to use the sticks and the consequences of using them incorrectly. We turned off the lights and let our excited, wild sides out, all while staying under control. The kids were great, and they loved the game.

Jim then closed with a relaxation that included a pouch that held different rocks that could change us into different characters. We used these parts of ourselves to solve problems in the story.

We wanted to share these ideas with you as a way to help you through the wild Halloween energy. We are sending heart thoughts to you all!

– Lynea and Jim Gillen

More information about these activities can be found in the award-winning book Yoga Calm for Children: Educating Heart, Mind and Body.

Adaptations & Applications: Starting the School Day with Hoberman Breathing

Kathy Flaminio is one of our trainers and a social worker at a Minneapolis K-8 elementary school. Along with Julie Hurtubise, she has helped bring Yoga Calm to the Minneapolis Public Schools district-wide. (To learn more about their pilot program, click here. To see news coverage about it, click here.)

Recently, Kathy told us about how they’ve been taking time at her school each morning to bring the school community together through a simple Yoga Calm breathing activity that she first taught in classrooms and to school staff. Daily, over the intercom, she – or sometimes a student – says something like this:

Good Morning, Jefferson Staff and Students. We want to welcome everyone back to school this morning.

Every day at 9:40, we will bring our entire school community together by joining our breath with the breathing ball [Hoberman sphere, which is now “standard equipment” in many classrooms].

 

 

If you are in the hallway or in a meeting, please take a moment to pause so we can all breathe together. If you are in a classroom, please get your sphere out.

Begin to come into stillness, letting go of the morning and all that has taken place before coming to Jefferson. If you in a chair or on the floor, sit up nice and tall. If you are standing, press your feet into the earth and lengthen through the spine.

Let’s begin with shoulder circles…taking our shoulders up to the ears …back and down. Do this two more times. Breathe in and lift the shoulders up to the ears…and breathe out as you bring your shoulders down. One more time. Now begin to watch the breathing ball, or close your eyes and begin. Breathing in…let the belly puff up, and breathing out…let the belly move back toward the spine. Again, breathing in…and out. Six more times. Inhaling and exhaling…. Five more….

Take a moment to notice how your body and mind feel after taking eight deep breaths. Know that at anytime today when you feel frustrated, angry or nervous, you can come back to your breath and find center.

Have a great day! We are so glad you are here.

 

In telling us about the success they’ve had with this activity, Kathy commented on how those unfamiliar with Yoga Calm initially may see such activity as a distraction, taking away valuable classroom time. “But of course,” she said, “the breathing helps students and faculty alike quickly get calm and focused, and so better prepared to do good work. It prevents even greater distraction. And this is exactly why it’s time well spent.”

Adaptations & Applications: Volcano Breath En Masse!

Laura Barbour is a counselor at a suburban Oregon elementary school who uses Yoga Calm in her work with children and is now one of our newest Certified Instructors.

Recently, she shared an experience with us which we think shows both a great adaptation of Yoga Calm practice and how it can help develop intention and community. When we asked Laura if we could share her story here on the blog, she said yes without hesitation.

For the first assembly of the new school year, the staff and administration wanted to set a positive tone for the coming year. They wanted to welcome the new students and create a sense of community. Most of all, they wanted to nurture a sense of “collective responsibility” about the school, Laura told us. “We wanted to focus on what we value as a school and give others – especially the students – a say in it.”

At the last assembly of the previous year, Laura’s yoga groups had demonstrated Hoberman sphere breathing and the Mat 20 sequence, and ended by leading the whole school in Volcano Breath. It was so well-received (“Cool!” said a lot of the kids) that for the new assembly, Laura offered to start it off by leading the group of 600 in Hoberman breathing to help the students calm and focus. Then, after students had shared their thoughts about their ideal school – the main business of the assembly – she would lead them all in Volcano Breath.

Now, when Volcano Breath is done in a Yoga Calm session, we usually ask students to send out their “heart thoughts” with each exhalation. Laura decided to ask them to do something a little bit different: create intention.

“Imagine how you see the school,” Laura prompted the group upon the first breath.

On the second breath, she suggested, “Now imagine the school as you would like it to be.”

And on the third, “Imagine what you can do to make the school that way.”

“When the students and staff envisioned their ideal school, it was an act of making the school their own and creating ideas for making our collective vision a shared reality,” explained Laura. “And being with 600 people, all of us breathing together as one, was very powerful.”

And to that, we say, “Well done, Laura!”

Download the Volcano Breath activity sheet at Scribd.

Guided Relaxation with Yoga Jim

We’ve been talking a bit about stress lately and the need for quality sleep and other habits to counter it and make ourselves more stress-resilient. Yet another means of letting go of the tension is the kind of deep relaxation that ends every yoga practice. As B.K.S. Iyengar, a well-respected yoga teacher who has played a large part in bringing yoga to the West, states, “The stresses of modern civilization are a strain on the nerves for which [deep relaxation] is the best antidote.”

Indeed, the relaxation poses that end each session of practice are often considered the most important part of yoga in that they allow the mind, body, and emotions to heal, grow, and integrate.

Here’s a sample 12 minute relaxation from Jim’s Yoga Renewal CD. As he mentions, it is to be done in “Savasana,” which is the Sanskrit name for the traditional relaxation that is done at the end of a yoga class. Lie on your back with your arms at your sides but slightly away from your body and with palms up, and let your feet fall they will to either side. Breathe deeply and slowly from your belly as you go through this guided relaxation, which can be done by itself or at the end of a full yoga session.

 

Yoga Renewal: Relaxation mp3

 

Yoga Renewal, designed for the beginning yoga student, is 50-minute guided practice that will take you through 15 gentle poses that will stretch and revitalize your entire body – taking the knots out of those tight shoulders, strengthening your back and abdomen, loosening up legs and hips, and relaxing your mind. It – and its musical soundtrack from the CD Anjali – are available for purchase at the Yoga Calm Store.

10 Tips for Better Sleep

 

sean dreilinger/Flickr

In our book Yoga Calm for Children: Educating Heart, Mind, and Body we write:

When we rest, the body heals and the mind and body integrate experiences. Rest allows us to reflect on the day and notice the effects of our activities on our emotions, mind, and body. In rest, free of distractions and stimulation, we are able to dream, to imagine, to work on solutions to our daily lives.

Sleep deprivation, on the other hand, can negatively affect mental performance, muscle control, and mood. Furthermore, strong, mounting evidence indicates that lost or damaged sleep is associated with serious long-term health problems including heart disease, diabetes, viral infection, cancer, depression, and substance abuse.

Adequate sleep and rest are important not only for growing bodies but also for mental development and emotional health. Scientists believe that sleep helps to weave disparate, emotionally fragmented, or weakly coupled memories together into coherent structures that the brain can then use more effectively during wakefulness. The more complex the physical or mental experience, the more important sleep is for efficiently integrating and remembering the experience.

Sleep deprivation is a significant yet often hidden health issue. In Healing Night,
Rubin R. Naiman notes that, in recent years, the amount of sleep adolescents get has been reduced by two or more hours a night. (According to the National Sleep Foundation, school age children need 10 to 11 hours nightly for good health, with teens needing 9 1/4 hours.) This affects children’s health on many levels. For example, a lack of sleep often results in increased consumption of high calorie foods and caffeinated products, which can trigger behavior problems and mental health conditions like ADHD.

Good sleep is important for adults, too – and for the same physiological and psychological reasons. But when it comes to the hows, many of us are stumped.

So here are 10 tips for getting better sleep:

1. Relax before retiring. Take some time for a pre-sleep ritual to break the connection between stress and bedtime. Listen to some calming music. Meditate. Read a bit. Do some light stretching. Try some lavender aromatherapy or a hot bath. But remember, TV watching and bright lights can interfere with our bodies’ natural release of melatonin – the hormone that helps us to fall asleep.
2. Make the routine routine. Go to bed around the same time every night. Your body will learn that time is bedtime and relax accordingly, especially if a regular bedtime is in conjunction with some relaxation ritual as described above.
3. Remember the purpose of the bed. Avoid TV, reading, eating and emotional discussions while in bed. The mind and body associate bedtime activities with being in bed. So don’t let a bad habit keep you awake.
4. Eat right and sleep tight. Avoid eating a large meal just bed bedtime or going to bed hungry. It’s about balance. Also, when possible, opt for foods that promote sleep, such as milk, tuna, pumpkin, artichokes, avocados, almonds, eggs, peaches, walnut, apricots, oats, asparagus, potatoes and bananas.
5. Watch the caffeine. Coffee, most sodas and many teas contain caffeine and may keep you up. If you’ve already had too much, consider eating some carbohydrates like bread or crackers to counter the effects. Adults should also watch alcohol intake, for although it may help you fall asleep, it can also cause sleep-disturbing nightmares, sweats and headaches as your body clears the alcohol from your system.
6. No drinks after 8 p.m. To enjoy sleep uninterrupted by bathroom breaks, shut down your fluid intake early.
7. Exercise at the right time. Regular exercise relieves stress and encourages good sleep. However, if a little exercise really gets your blood pumping, you’d be wise to avoid working out in the evening or just before bedtime.
8. Cut down on noise, light and extreme temperatures. Try earplugs, a night light, an eye mask or drape clip. The best temperature for sleep is 68° to 72°F.
9. Understand jet lag. A few days before you cross time zones, try waking up later or earlier as needed, to help your body adjust to the time difference. It takes a few days for your body to fully adjust.
10. Nap smart. A 20 minute power nap early in the day can really refresh you. But sleep too much, and you may spend the night staring at the ceiling.