Y O G A A N D M I N D F U L N E S S T O O L SF O R C H I L D R E N & A D O L E S C E N T S

The School Yoga Project is a program of Little Flower Yoga, bringing Embodied Mindfulness to school communities nationwide

B U I L D I N G S E L F - A W A R E N E S S A N D R E S I L I E N C E

Y O G A A N D M I N D F U L N E S S T O O L S F O R C H I L D R E N & A D O L E S C E N T S

The School Yoga Project is a program of Little Flower Yoga, bringing Embodied Mindfulness to school communities nationwide

B U I L D I N G S E L F - A W A R E N E S S A N D R E S I L I E N C E

EMBRACE JOY, BUILD RESILIENCE.Our mission is to help kids thrive in the world regardless of circumstances, and navigate the many challenges they face with a sense of personal power and self-awareness.

“Mindfulness is paying attention to your life here and now with kindness and curiosity.”

- Amy Saltzman

Yoga offers a pathway towards mindfulness, grounded in practice and accessible to all. It cultivates inner resources that maximize resilience and support healthy navigation of challenges.

ANXIETY

ANXIETY

something is wrong…i can’t handle it

RESILIENCE

something important to me is at stake…

i’m nervous about my ability to handle it

time to get my A-Game on!

MIND

BREATH

BODY

COMMUNITY

Harnessing our Resources

anxiety information

threat challenge

fear courage

A g e n c y a n d P e r s o n a l P o w e r

5 Elements of The School Yoga Project

1Connect 2 Breathe

3 Move

4 Focus

5Relax

CONNECT

BREATHE

body ready for action

mind scanning for threats

behavior is reactive and impulsive

Sympathetic Nervous System

body can rest, heal, grow, learn

mind can integrate new information, see the big picture

actions can be thoughtful and deliberate

Parasympathetic Nervous System

MOVE

FOCUS

RELAX

ACTIVITY VIDEOS

3-5 minute practices FREE

gonoodle.com/channels/empower-tools

Our breath is a wonderful resource because we always have it with us. If we bring kind and curious awareness to our breath, we can get clear information on how we’re feeling. When we bring awareness to our breath, we connect with our autonomous nervous system, which in turn can help us find balance—even when we’re facing challenges or stressful situations.  

This New York Times article cites Richard P. Brown, MD, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and co-author of The Healing Power of the Breath, as saying, “When you take slow, steady breaths, your brain gets the message that all is well and activates the parasympathetic response.... When you take shallow rapid breaths or hold your breath, the sympathetic response is activated.” When we bring awareness to our breath we attune inward and can see if our nervous system is in sympathetic (fight or flight) or parasympathetic (rest and digest) mode. In addition, with time, the breath can shift and activate your parasympathetic response.

Moreover, mindfulness research  suggests that “mindful breathing may help to reduce reactivity to repetitive thoughts” and “may offer psychological benefits above and beyond other credible brief stress-management exercises.” In other words, mindfulness of breath can also help reduce knee-jerk responses to rumination and help decrease stress. 

The wonderful thing about mindfulness of breath is that it can be practiced in a fairly straightforward way. In the aforementioned research study, participants were “guided to become aware of physical sensations—especially those associated with the process of breathing—and to observe them without the intention of altering them.” Participants were simply asked to bring attention to the sensations of the breath without doing anything to change or manipulate the breath. Yet bringing awareness to the breath in this simple way deeply supports healthy nervous system regulation as well as our ability to focus and manage stress.

Little Flower Yoga introduces mindfulness of breath to adults and students early on in our classes. As part of our opening routine, we ask participants to bring one hand to their chest and one hand to their belly to support their awareness of the breath as it moves through the body. We get students into the habit of bringing awareness to their breath whenever someone says something thought provoking, when there is an abundance or a lack of energy, if students seem confused, or if challenging conversations arise in class. We find that it helps to insert this kind of pause and that it supports everyone’s ability to respond to a situation more skillfully. 

Bringing awareness to the breath in the moment can give students insight into how they’re feeling and help them attune to what they need to meet each moment with kindness and curiosity.

W W W. L I T T L E F L O W E R Y O G A . C O M

How Can Our Breath Be A Resource?

MINDFUL MONDAYS FREE RESOURCES FOR EDUCATORSlittlefloweryoga.com/programs/mindful-mondays/

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Little Flower Yoga for Kids: Jennifer Cohen Harper

The Upside of Stress: Kelly McGonigal

A Still Quiet Place: Amy Saltzman

The Whole Brain Child: Daniel Siegel

Presence: Amy Cuddy

QUESTIONS jennifer@littlefloweryoga.com

MORE INFO littlefloweryoga.com

THE SCHOOL YOGA PROJECT mayuri@littlefloweryoga.com

Understanding the Difference Between Yoga, Mindfulness, and Meditation

While yoga, mindfulness, and meditation are at times used in a casually interchangeable way, or as umbrella terms for contemplative practices, they are distinct from each other even as they bump up against, overlap, or support each other.

Mindfulness The definition of mindfulness that we use in our LFY work is Amy Saltzman’s definition: “Mindfulness is

paying attention to your life, here and now, with kindness and curiosity.” While mindfulness is often talked about in

connection with emotional regulation, it’s a misunderstanding to think of it as learning to control your emotions.

Rather, mindfulness explores living with all emotions and thoughts, and developing a more compassionate

relationship with them. It’s about present-moment awareness and the lens that you choose to examine the present

moment with. This lens is sometimes called “nonjudgmental awareness.” Children respond better to the idea of

kindness and curiosity about our experiences. What can often be confusing is that the word “mindfulness” is used to

describe both a practice and the end goal of that practice (yoga is used in the same way). You can do mindfulness

exercises, which are experiences that are created with the intention of practicing being mindfully aware of your

experience, or you can talk about being mindful in everyday life, which is about tuning in to the present with

kindness and curiosity. One can take a mindful approach to both yoga and meditation, but mindfulness is also

distinct in that it has its own history and set of practices.

Yoga is a set of practices and philosophies that in many ways has the same goal of mindfulness—but with more

specificity and usually more of a defined method of practice. What can be most challenging about understanding

yoga is that there are many different forms and schools of yoga. What we teach at LFY, and what most people in the

United States practice, is based on an eight-limbed practice that incorporates breathwork, movement, meditation,

and more (as more fully described in the book Little Flower Yoga for Kids). Yoga can be a type of mindfulness

practice, but only when that is intentional—when the practices are undertaken with a commitment to kindness and

curiosity about our experience. This is the real intention of yoga, but it is also possible to do yoga practices with an

attitude of achievement, competition, self-loathing, and so on, and some people do yoga practices without being

very mindful (although many wouldn’t call that yoga but rather “yoga-like” exercises). LFY specifically seeks to

integrate mindfulness into all aspects of the yoga practice, and the yoga practices give us a more concrete and

embodied way to explore mindfulness. But yoga, unlike mindfulness, gives significant weight to our capacity to use

our body, breath, and mind to change our state or our experience (while mindfulness suggests a more natural or

automatic change in state as the quality of awareness shifts). In yoga, our bodies become a resource and a source of

strength and self-determination.

Meditation is a term that essentially describes focused attention. In some, the intention is to be aware of the present

moment, but in others we place our awareness on an external object or a visualization of some sort. In others, the

intention is to cultivate a particular quality, such as compassion or generosity. Another way of using the word

“meditate” is in place of the words “to study”; the word “meditation” comes from a root that means “to think” or

“ponder” or “contemplate.” What we are usually describing in meditation is the self-study of our own minds.

Mindfulness meditation is one type of meditation, but there are many others. Yoga encourages the practice of

several different forms of meditation.

LFY Training Manual: Level One © 2017 Little Flower Yoga. All rights reserved. May not be copied without written permission.

The Nervous System and the Breath: Working Together

Our bodies are in many ways governed by two different masters: the sympathetic nervous system and the

parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic system regulates our normal metabolic functions—things like

digestion, healing, and growth. When our parasympathetic system is dominant, our bodies can function optimally,

and for children this means that they can grow and develop in a healthy way. When our parasympathetic system is in

charge, we breathe in and out through our noses. This is the healthiest way for our bodies to breathe, as the air

coming in is warmed and filtered.

The sympathetic nervous system is what we generally think of as our fight-or-flight mode. It’s the part of us that takes

over when we feel threatened or fearful. When the sympathetic nervous system is in charge, all of our normal

metabolic functions are put on hold, we experience a flood of adrenaline into our bodies, and our energy is diverted

to physical strength and increased alertness so that we can run or fight. When the sympathetic nervous system is

activated, we breathe in and out through our mouths in order to take in the most oxygen as quickly as possible.

In an ideal world, our sympathetic nervous system would only be activated when there was a genuine threat to our

safety. Most of the time, we would be using our energy to stay healthy, digest our food, process toxins from our

body, and grow. The problem is that for many people, both adults and children, the sympathetic nervous system gets

stuck in the on position even when there is no genuine threat. This can happen for many different reasons. Too much

sensory stimulation (including bright lights and loud noises, which are very common in urban environments), chronic

stress, previous trauma, and persistent anxiety can all contribute to a situation whereby our bodies feel that they

need to be on high alert on a regular basis. When that happens, we end up with all sorts of problems, from

stomachaches to compromised immune function and, in extreme cases, even delayed growth. When our

sympathetic nervous system is over-activated, it also makes it very challenging to stay focused. Usually, when we

need to focus on something, our mind helps by adjusting to and filtering out irrelevant stimuli, but when our

sympathetic nervous system is in charge, every noise, sight, and smell represents a potential danger that has to be

evaluated. Our decision-making is also impacted, as we are in a state of high reactivity, where the body responds to

input and impulses quickly and defensively.

With this understanding of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, we can make more sense of why

our breath has such a strong effect on how we feel. When the parasympathetic nervous system is in control, we

breathe through our nose. When the sympathetic nervous system is in control, we breathe through our mouth. What

is remarkable is that the reverse is also true. When you breathe through your mouth, you send a signal to your body

that it needs to be ready for something, and the sympathetic nervous system starts to take control. When you

breathe through your nose, you are telling your body that everything is okay. The parasympathetic system can take

over. You can heal, digest, learn, and grow.

What this means is that if breathing through your nose becomes a habit, and you deliberately breathe through your

nose in times of challenge, you can actually begin to change the response of your nervous system and override your

body’s fight-or-flight response. Of course, breathing through your nose when your body is reacting to stress, anxiety,

or fear is not always easy. Learning to notice your breathing, and then making the effort to change it, is a skill that

can be practiced. By teaching children that they are the masters of their breath, we can help them shift their way of

interacting with their own emotions and with the world around them.

LFY Training Manual: Level One © 2017 Little Flower Yoga. All rights reserved. May not be copied without written permission.