Evidence-Based Yoga in Schools: What the Research Shows

In 2025 a research team from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center and Emory University needed a yoga curriculum they could safely use with children in active cancer treatment, on a transplant unit, some of them immunocompromised.

They used ours.

“The study utilized Grounded Kids Yoga which incorporates the principles and practices found in Hatha Yoga.”

“Grounded Kids provides 84 poses which served as the foundation for the yoga intervention sessions.”

Every child enrolled received Grounded Kids pose cards and a handbook. The study found the intervention safe and feasible. Read about the study.

What the research says about yoga in schools

Every study named below is linked to its record so you can read it yourself. Where the evidence is thin, this page says so.

Mental health and emotional regulation

The strongest area of the literature. A meta-analysis of 33 randomized controlled trials covering 3,666 children and adolescents found small to moderate improvements in mindfulness, attention, emotional regulation and mental health (Dunning et al., 2018). The clearest single trial is Sibinga et al. (2016) in Pediatrics, with urban middle school students. Two earlier randomized trials put yoga inside the regular high school day (Khalsa et al., 2012; Noggle et al., 2012).

Stress, measured in saliva

In a ten week classroom yoga program, one second grade class showed a drop in baseline cortisol and their teacher reported improvements in behavior, while the third grade class showed less (Butzer et al., 2015). Cortisol is a stress hormone rather than a self report, though this was a pilot with no control group. School age girls in a mindful yoga program reported less stress and better coping (White, 2012), and high school students in a qualitative evaluation described using breathing to manage stress outside class (Conboy et al., 2013).

Attention, including ADHD

Real and modest. A randomized trial of preschoolers with ADHD symptoms found modest improvement on an objective attention test and selective improvement on parent ratings, with the clearest gains in the children who began with the most severe symptoms (Cohen et al., 2018). That last detail matches what teachers describe: the children who need it most change most visibly.

Physical development and self-esteem

Twelve weeks of kindergarten yoga improved leg strength, flexibility, speed, balance and global self-esteem, compared with both a physical education group and a control group (Jarraya, Jarraya & Nouira, 2022). An early controlled study found improved static motor performance in school children after yoga training (Telles et al., 1993).

The adults in the room

A randomized controlled trial of female teachers found improvements in psychological state, sleep quality and cognitive function after a yogic relaxation practice (Rao et al., 2017). Schools underestimate this. A regulated adult is the intervention.

What the research does not show

It does not show yoga raising test scores. Anyone who tells a principal otherwise is going further than the evidence goes. What it shows is improvement in the conditions learning depends on: attention, impulse control, stress recovery, and readiness to receive instruction.

What separates a program that works from one that does not

This is the part that decides whether a school gets a result, and it is the most consistent finding in the literature. Effects are strongest when the practice is short, frequent, embedded in the ordinary school day, and led by trained educators rather than dropped in by an outside facilitator once a week.

Which means the question for a school is not whether to buy a yoga program. It is who in the building is going to be trained to lead it.

Bringing evidence-based yoga into your school

Grounded Kids trains the people already in the building: classroom teachers, counselors, occupational therapists, social workers and school-based yoga teachers. Step 1 covers child development through the chakra system, self-regulation and grounding tools, our trauma-aware sequencing system, visual and sensory tools for accessibility, and ethical ways to teach real yoga to children. Step 2 is devoted to neurodiverse learners.

As a Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider our trainings count as continuing education hours for registered yoga teachers, and graduate level credit is offered separately through our partner Courses4Teachers. For educators, counselors and therapists it depends on your district or your licensing board, so check with them and we will provide all the necessary documentation.

To talk about a school or district program, reach out to Amy Haysman at amy@groundedkids.com, or see the full training pathway.

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