7 ways not to get bored during Yoga | International Yoga Day Special|

As a consequence of the prolonged lockdowns amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, uncertainties in the academic calendar, restricted outdoor activities and irregular as well as unusual routines has led to higher incidences of stress, anxiety and depression among children worldwide. This is one of the reasons why it has become the need of the hour for switching from other forms of activities such as watching screen for hours to practicing yoga for gaining better immunity as well as general wellbeing for children. In the last three years yoga has gained popularity amongst children of all age groups like never before.

Yoga has a myriad of benefits for people of all age groups especially children and what better an occasion than the International Yoga Day itself to talk about it. 

Yoga helps children in many ways such as:

• Self-acceptance

• Boosts their confidence

• Release of excess energy

• Helps them balance

• Better alignment of the body/posture

• Helps them relax

• Contributes to their mental development 

• Reduces stress by helping them manage their anxiety/depression

• Helps them in better sleep

• Boosts their immunity

• Learn to be in the present moment while relaxing and gaining a peaceful state of mind

• Gives them a sense of self-empowerment

• Increases their body’s awareness and mindfulness

• Enhances their concentration and memory

• Develops their strength and flexibility

• Teaches discipline

• Reduces impulsivity

• Promotes creativity

• Improves their academic performance

• Improves their emotional regulation

• Helps them tackle many challenges that life throws at them

• Helps in decreasing violence in schools by providing a way for them to release pent-up energy, stress and anger.

• Helps them bond better with parents

With the power of their breath children can easily manage their emotions through mindfulness practices. Their lives can be enriched with yoga through yogic principles.However, children usually find yoga boring and monotonous. This is where parents and yoga teachers hit the bump in the road. This can become very challenging, uninspiring as well as disheartening for their parents and/or yoga instructors.

Reasons for children to get bored easily during yoga sessions could include:

Yoga is often looked at as an activity which is slow, boring as well as unexciting by children. The minute they are told to do yoga, they picture a group of people sitting or laying on a mat with their eyes closed, not moving and making weird poses. It is difficult to grab their attention with various other interesting options of entertainment available that too just on the touch of a screen.

The reason why children find yoga sessions boring include-

• A Short attention span

• Restlessness

• Classical yoga asanas which they find difficult to perform

• Getting distracted easily

• It is not entertaining so they get bored easily

• Uninspiring

• The teacher lacks that energy

• Lack of motivation

• Not being done in the right manner which could cause pain or injury and thereby lack of motivation to continue.

Here are 7 tips for parents/yoga instructors to make yoga lessons exciting for children:

• Try to make the time they spend on the mat enjoyable. This can be achieved by curling the corners of your mouth up into a smile. Since smiles are contagious just like germs, it spreads easily to others especially to the younger lot who find it way too difficult to hold it. This will ensure that they enjoy the experience more and are motivated enough to come back and be regular. 

• Put on some upbeat groovy tunes and allow them to go with the flow. It will keep the energy in the room positive and make them feel relaxed. Faster music can make them feel more alert and concentrate better. Children would love to follow the steps to the beats and enjoy the sessions more.

• Start the session with a warm-up as it boosts the cardiovascular system slowly and increases blood flow while raising the body temperature. Warm- up exercises like rotating the neck clockwise and anti-clockwise and pumping the shoulders helps in relieving stiffness and shrugs off the energy.

• Begin with easy asanas such as child’s pose (Balasana), sitting pose (Sukhasana), half-lotus pose (Ardha Padmasana), cobra pose (Bhujangasana), butterfly pose (Baddha Konasana), tree pose (Vriksasana) etc.

• Replace the Sanskrit names of the asanas with animal names. Such as the butterfly pose, the giraffe pose, the cobra pose, the camel pose, the mountain pose, the rabbit pose, etc. They will find these yoga asanas more interesting and it will be easier for them to follow instructions as they are familiar with all those names and they have intrinsic love for animals.

• Do not let the energy of the room dip or let them feel discouraged at any point during the yoga session due to initial lack of flexibility or their inability to do a particular pose. Be patient with them and help them improve over a period of time. Help them focus on their  breath, right from the beginning.

• Yoga for children can be done through story-telling, singing songs, dancing, playing games and even while watching yoga on TV. This will help them embrace it more as it is taught in a language which they understand  and can relate to better. 

The focus should be to make yoga class a happy and a fun place and yoga time a stress free time for children wherein they gain a lot and feel elevated as well as uplifted. Besides, a yoga session should ideally prepare them to face their day ahead more confidently and energetically.

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