Oakland, CA (PRWEB) August 12, 2014 -- The Journal of Applied School Psychology in its February issue published a study that Transformative Life Skills or TLS is effective in reducing “anxiety, depression and global psychological distress”. TLS, developed by the Niroga institute in Oakland, California, has been taught in many schools, alternate schools, and juvenile detention centers for over nine years. TLS is a dynamic or movement-based mindfulness practice that consists of yoga postures, breath regulation, and meditation. The study, “Effectiveness of a School-Based Yoga Program on Adolescent Mental Health Stress Coping Strategies, and Attitudes Toward Violence: Findings from a High-Risk Sample,” was led by Jennifer L. Frank, PhD, at the Prevention Research Center at Pennsylvania State University.
The results of this study are highly significant. Dr. Frank said, “A particularly important finding of relevance to this population was the strong and significant reductions we found in youth report of revenge motivation and hostility.” TLS has been gaining prominence in the mindfulness field, especially in the areas of education, health care, violence prevention, and youth development. According to another study in the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, “Adolescents’ ability to modulate their emotional responses to stress is increasingly being recognized as an important skill for ensuring mental health, academic success, and healthy transition into adulthood.” Several recent studies show that yoga in classroom settings helps reduce stress in children and increases their focus and attention and enhancing learning readiness.
According to Bidyut Bose, PhD, Founder and Executive Director of Niroga Institute, “This study has direct implications for dismantling the trillion-dollar school-to-prison pipeline, while closing the academic achievement gap and enabling education equity.” The TLS curriculum focuses on four key areas: stress management, body and emotional awareness, self- regulation, and building healthy relationships, and can be done in as little as fifteen minutes per day.
This study is a key resource for innovators in education seeking to improve student academic, social and emotional learning, while transforming school and classroom climate.
The article is available online at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15377903.2013.863259.
Chandra Ganguly, Niroga, http://www.niroga.org/, +1 415 676-0833, [email protected]
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