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Yoga for children

Yoga acts as a stress buster for kids too

Yoga has long been used to relieve stress and improve posture. Now the benefits of the ancient discipline are being used by schools to improve concentration and help relaxation.

By 2007, the child yoga specialists, YogaBugs, estimates that at least 100,000 children will be taking part in classes each week, doubling the number practising yoga last year.

"It improves children's co-ordination and balance, builds strength and stamina and promotes healthy sleeping patterns. Yoga is also valuable for pre-teen children who go through an enormous amount of physical, mental and emotional changes," Fenella Lindsell, founder of YogaBugs, which teaches children in the age group 2-12, was quoted by the Independent, as saying. Karen Conroy, headmistress at Norfolk Lodge Nursery and Preparatory School in Barnet, north London, said teachers have found that yoga introduces "a pocket of calm" into classes. She said three- and four-year-old children spend 15 minutes doing simple deep-breathing poses after their lunch break.

The school has adopted an approach that puts each yoga posture to music, named June's Yoga after founder June Rowlands. So while children are stretching into the triangle pose (Trikonasana), they will sing "I'm a little teapot."

Conroy said: "It is a friendly approach to yoga with rhymes that the children already know such as `Row, Row, Row the Boat'.

Georgie Wolfinden, a wellbeing expert, said ``Children are more stressed than before and have forgotten the importance of how to play. '' — (ANI)

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