RESEARCH: Sustaining Mood with Yoga in High School

RESEARCH:  Sustaining Mood with Yoga in High School

(taken from Amy Weintraub's August 3, 2011 newsletter)

Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Institute for Extraordinary Living (IEL) at Kripalu have been studying the potential mental health benefits of a yoga 30 - 40 minute yoga intervention as compared to a regular physical education class at several Massachusetts high schools.  In the first study to be published, yoga participants showed statistically significant differences over time relative to controls on measures of anger control and fatigue/inertia. Other outcomes did not show significant gains, possibly, according to the authors, because the end of the semester included the added stress of final exams.The control group who attended regular gym classes actually saw a significant decline in overall mood scores, including anxiety and depression. What this means is that from the beginning of the semester to the end, students in the control group felt worse by the end of the semester, whereas students in the yoga group felt the same as they did when school started or a little bit better.


The yoga protocol adapted a Yoga Ed format for high school students into the thirty-minute, twice weekly sessions.There was an initial five minute relaxation that included a focus on the breath, five minutes of warm ups, fifteen minutes of yoga poses and a five minute closing relaxation.The teachers who delivered the protocol were trained by Kripalu and Yoga Ed.  Each yoga session included a talking point grounded in yoga philosophy. On-going and future studies in secondary education conducted by this same research team are using a Kripalu-based yoga protocol.

Evaluation of the Mental Health Benefits of Yoga in a Secondary School: A Preliminary Randomized Controlled Trial

Khalsa SB, Hickey-Schultz L, Cohen D, Steiner N, Cope S.
J Behav Health Serv Res. 2011 Jun 7.[Epub ahead of print]