Yoga Is Not Mindfulness. Mindfulness Arises Through Yoga

Yoga Calm users know from experience how it can help kids with ADHD. Still, it’s always good to see and know that scientific evidence supports this, too. Such evidence was on full display in a new systematic review that dropped earlier this month, echoing a similar review that ran just a year before in the same journal, Cureus.

Yoga and meditation positively affect various symptoms in children with ADHD, including attention, hyperactivity, and impulsive behavior. If done in family group sessions, it also benefited the parents and family dynamics, suggesting a potential option for family therapy. Furthermore, other psychological symptoms, such as anxiety or low self-esteem, appeared to be positively impacted by these interventions.

The stronger the evidence base, the better, especially when it comes to getting buy-ins from administrators and families. Yet studies like this also often contain something that’s just a little bit…well…annoying: the characterization of yoga as a mindfulness approach, as if yoga developed separately from other mindfulness practices, just one among many ways of “doing mindfulness.”

Reality begs to differ.

Mindfulness Arises Through Yoga

Yoga predates the modern mindfulness movement by thousands of years. Its origins can be traced back to ancient India, where it was practiced as a way of life aimed at uniting mind, body, and spirit.

Buddha himself was a yogi who chose to focus primarily on meditation, illustrating that mindfulness and meditation have always been integral parts of the broader yoga tradition. In fact, they’re part of the 8 limbs of yoga, in which self-discipline practices such as asana (physical poses) and pranayama (breathwork) lay the groundwork for dharana (concentration) and dhyana (meditation or contemplation).

The rise of the mindfulness movement has led to a narrow interpretation of yoga. Meditation and mental exercises are prioritized over the physical and ethical dimensions that are essential to traditional yoga.

This has resulted in the mistaken belief that yoga is simply a form of mindfulness practice, rather than a comprehensive system that includes mindfulness.

Movement & Mindfulness

Just as some see yoga as just another form of mindfulness, others see it as just another form of exercise. Both of these are oversimplifications and strip from yoga essential features that make it such a powerful tool for supporting mental, behavioral, and physical health.

The connection with community and ethics creates an environment of safety in which the physical practices can be done. The physical practices, in turn, can be seen as a kind of rehearsal for the meditation and contemplation to come.

Without all those other limbs of yoga, mindfulness becomes a difficult pursuit.

Just think of how hard it can be sometimes to quiet your mind, to keep intrusive thoughts at bay by sheer brain power alone. Now imagine how much harder it is for a child with ADHD. Yet once they have begun to improve self-regulation by channeling their distracted energy into physical poses or controlled breathing, they begin to have an understanding of how to find stillness and calm.

At that point, more purely cognitive activities such as mindfulness and meditation can be effective.

Yoga prepares the way.