Children

Yoga for Trauma in Children

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“Yoga’s ability to touch us on every level of our being—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual—makes it a powerful and effective means for trauma victims to reinhabit their bodies safely, calm their minds, experience emotions directly, and begin to feel a sense of strength and control.” – van der Kolk

Trauma comes in many forms, from abuse to warfare, from children to the elderly, from natural and man-made causes, and from the rich to the poor. But, regardless of the cause or the characteristics of the individuals, it leaves in its wake a syndrome of posttraumatic symptoms which can haunt the victims for the rest of their lives. These include persistent recurrent re-experiencing of the traumatic event, including flashbacks and nightmares, loss of interest in life, detachment from other people, increased anxiety and emotional arousal, including outbursts of anger, difficulty concentration, and jumpiness, startling easily.

There have been many treatments employed each with varying but limited success. Mostly these treatments have been used with adults. But, children who are victims of trauma have been the focus of very few studies of therapeutic interventions. The lack of focus is surprising as it’s been estimated that of adolescents, 8% had been exposed to sexual assault, 17% physical assault, and 39% had witnessed violence. It is estimated that 15% of children show symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Mindfulness training and yoga practice have been found to be effective for trauma in adults, particularly from the middle and upper classes. It has yet to be shown if they can be employed effectively with children and with individuals from low socioeconomic categories. In today’s Research News article “Yoga to Reduce Trauma-Related Distress and Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties Among Children Living in Orphanages in Haiti: A Pilot Study”

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Culver and colleagues begin to address this issue by employing yoga training to treat traumatized orphans in Haiti. They found that yoga reduced the symptoms of trauma in these children and showed a trend toward a reduction in behavioral difficulties.

These findings are very encouraging. Trauma affects both the mind and the body. Yoga works with both, but is particularly targeted to the body. The relaxation produced by yoga practice is a soothing antidote to the hyperaroused state that is so characteristic of trauma victims. Yoga appears to reduce activity in the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight system. Hence, yoga appears to produce both muscular and physiological relaxation, directly addressing a symptom of trauma.

The practice of focusing attention that is so central to yoga training addresses the difficulties with concentration that are characteristic of trauma victims. The focus of attention in yoga is on the sensations from the body. This can directly address the numbing of sensation that is frequently reported by trauma victim. In addition, getting in touch with bodily sensations helps trauma victims get more in touch with their emotions allowing them to better work with them.

So, yoga appears to be an excellent treatment for trauma alone but preferably in combination with other treatment modalities.

CMCS

Building a Better Adult – Preschool Mindfulness Training

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What we learn as young children continues to affect us throughout our lives. If we wish to build better adults the place to start is in early childhood education. Here we can mold and build behaviors and attitudes that will shape the individual’s behavior over a lifetime.

Our focus to date in early education has been almost exclusively on building knowledge and performance on standardized tests. We have neglected to specifically work on developing cognitive, emotional, and social skills despite the fact that it has been established that these skills are not only important unto themselves, but are also turn out to be very important in developing academic skills. Research has demonstrated that cognitive, emotional, and social skills in childhood predict health, financial stability, and educational attainment into adulthood.

Childhood is an optimum time to develop these skills. Children are malleable and their nervous systems are particularly plastic and capable of being shaped and molded. In today’s Research News article “Promoting prosocial behavior and self-regulatory skills in preschool children through a mindfulness-based kindness curriculum.”

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Lisa Flook and colleagues test the effectiveness of a mindfulness program in 4 and 5 year old preschool children. They demonstrate that a brief program in mindfulness improves a whole spectrum of cognitive and social behaviors, including social competence, health, social-emotional development, cognitive flexibility and delay of gratification and even improves report card grades. That the effect may be lasting was evidenced by the fact that the improved grades carried over into the semester following the training.

This is quite remarkable that relatively brief mindfulness training with 4 to 5 year olds can produce such far ranging effects. A key element may be that the mindfulness training improves self-regulation. The better performance of the trained children in the delay of gratification task is indicative of improved ability for self-control. Doing well on this task has been shown to predict success in later life. This improved self-regulation may also be the reason for the improved grades.

Another key element of mindfulness training is improvement in attentional ability. Young children have very limited attentional ability and any increase can have far ranging consequences for the child’s behavior. Attention is also a component in self-regulation further strengthening the self-control. It also is important for academic achievement and its enhancement may be a major contributor to the grade improvements.

Mindfulness training also improves mindfulness itself. It improves engagement with what is transpiring in the present. Such focus is important in successful academic and social competence. It has also been shown to produce appreciation for life and increased happiness. These attitudes can infect everything that the child engages in, making them more effective and popular.

Humans are social creatures and skillful social behavior can be a key to not only later success but also happiness. Once again attention and self-regulation are important in social interactions and these may be contributing to the improved social competence in the trained children. But an additional focus of the training was on developing the qualities of kindness and care toward oneself and others. This kind of training has been shown to improve empathy and compassion, which are important skills for social success.

So train your children in mindfulness and produce a better adult.

CMCS