Join LHS’s new and improved yoga club! Yoga is a 5,000-year-old discipline from India, developed as a practice to unite the mind and body. High school can be a stressful time for many people, yoga and breathing exercises can help balance that anxiety. New research suggests yoga can improve grades and productivity among students who participate. According to Harvard Medical School, breathing practices and meditation reduce anxiety and depression while also enhancing brain function. When you practice yoga your brain develops new connections which result in improved cog­nitive skills, like learning and memory. Yoga reinforces parts of the brain that play a key role in attention, memory, awareness, thought and language.

Practicing yoga is so beneficial to high schoolers because it helps ease stress while also working on your brain function. Not only does this support mental health but it also advances physical well-being. Yoga also improves heart health by increasing circulation and blood flow. In addition, practicing yoga can help lower blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose levels, as well as the heart rate, which all reduce the risk of stroke and heart disease. Among many other benefits, doing yoga has also been linked to a more restful sleep. Doing simple poses such as Child’s Pose or simply lying on the floor and positioning both legs on the wall while deeply breathing, helps to improve mental and physical health.

If practicing yoga and breathing exercises sounds like something you would enjoy, join Ms. May in Lecture Hall 1 at 3:15 p.m. on Wednesdays.