Yoga practice for children can be very rewarding activity as it can help self-conscious children become more aware of the things they can do. Yoga for children is an excellent way to develop the child in all aspects of life; ie, physical and mental well being. Personality development and also brain development. Yoga can help the children in large number of ways, by improving physical and general health, mental health and to helping to treat specific illness and condition. The most common benefit for yoga for children are related to maintain a healthy body and fighting illnesses.
Yoga is a gentle form of exercise and there is no much fear of injury of overdoing it. But it should be done in a correct manner along with proper breathing. Children can start practicing yoga from the age of five. A 15-20 minutes session is enough to get them started which can gradually increased to 30-45 minutes.
Yoga is science, philosophy, technology, and technique in the form of mental and physical discipline that can be followed to avoid, prevent and restrict the problems, diseases mentioned above. Simple techniques like proper breathing, relaxation, stretching body parts result in removal of common ailments & help to manage the stress resulting to function at the optimum of abilities. It is not only resistance to emotional storms but the best kind of health (mental, physical, spiritual), insurance starting a beneficial cycle with improved functioning of glands leading better metabolism, better vitality & vigor, a pleasant appearance. Yoga improves concentration, helps complete integration with self, control of thoughts and thus living a full healthy life.
Among the simple meditative postures is Vajrasana or the adamant-pose. It is termed adamant-pose for two reasons: first because it helps to keep the student securely fixed to the ground and secondly because it contributes in some measure towards physical virility.
The traditional meditative posture Padmasana or the lotus-pose may be regarded as an essential exercise in postural training both for the purpose of Yoga meditation as also for preserving normal elasticity of the muscles connected with the pelvis and the lower extremities. Those who are not accustomed to sit in an oriental fashion experience stiffness in the lower parts of the body. For them, in the initial stages, the lotus-pose may prove somewhat difficult to achieve, but this should be overcome through massage and regular, practice. What has to be remembered; however is that all undue strain must be avoided and the temptation to master it by violent jerks or forceful flexions of the lower joints should be resisted.
Clinical observation of Padmasana indicates that, besides being a meditative posture, it has many corrective and cultural advantages. It offers exercise or relaxation to almost all the important muscles, ligaments and tendons of the lower extremities. It further induces increased blood circulation in the abdominogenital region through interference at some stages, by hastening the return at others and especially by drawing greater supply of blood from the bifurcation of the abdominal aorta than what is possible under any normal posture. Thus, the inhibition caused in the general circulation by pressure of the heels provides for an increased supply of blood to the sex organs and also, incidentally, helps to tone the various nerve centers located in the pelvic region viz., the chain of the coccygeal and sacral nerves.
Improved respiration follows as a result of the chest being thrown forward and the abdomen held up in normal contour. The internal organs particularly, the intestinal tract, also derive the benefit of a correct sitting posture through the increased muscle tone and normal intra-abdominal pressure through anterior muscular tonicity and partial contraction.
For suppleness and elasticity, a novel form of stretching of the various ordinarily unexercised muscles of the body may be found in the posture known as Trikonasana or the triangle-pose. Through the exceptionally straight and full length adjustments of the bony structure of the arms, the spine and the legs, their somewhat mechanical bearing causes perforce such type of direct stretching as is otherwise not available.
Besides exercising and alternatively relaxing the muscles of the leg and cultivating certain physical characteristics such as neuromuscular coordination, balance, endurance and alertness, this posture also helps to gain nerve control. The demand on the nervous system is, of course, moderate when the same is practiced somewhat indifferently. But, if the body was to be held erect with the chest thrown forward and the legs at right angle to reach other, the demand for neuromuscular coordination to maintain equilibrium would be considerably increased.
Most of the Yoga postures and allied processes provide some form o exercise for the spine for the reason that Yoga lays great emphasis on the care of the spinal column and the nerves. This posture by alternate contraction and relaxation adjusts minor displacements of the vertebrae, relieves the vertebral foramen of undue pressure, exercises and tones the deep muscles supporting the spinal column and the trunk, promotes spinal circulation, and helps to maintain the normal elasticity of the spine.