Yoga and mindfulness have moved from the edges of school wellness into ordinary practice, and the research has moved with them. What follows is what the evidence actually supports, with every study named so you can read it yourself. Where the evidence is thin, this page says so.

Mental health and emotional regulation

This is 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, a randomized controlled trial of school based mindfulness instruction with urban middle school students. Two earlier randomized trials placed yoga inside the regular high school day and found improvements in mood and psychosocial wellbeing (Khalsa et al., 2012; Noggle et al., 2012).

Attention, behavior and self-regulation

Attention is where the effect is most often measured and most often 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 is a real finding and a limited one, and it matches what teachers describe: the children who need it most are the ones who change most visibly.

Stress

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 measured in saliva rather than a self report, though this was a pilot with no control group. A separate study of school age girls found reduced perceived stress and improved coping after a mindful yoga program (White, 2012), and a qualitative evaluation of a high school program described students using breathing to manage stress outside of class (Conboy et al., 2013).

Physical development and self-esteem

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

It works on the adults in the room too

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). This is the part schools underestimate. 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.

It also shows that how a program is delivered matters as much as whether it happens. Effects are strongest when the practice is short, frequent, embedded in the school day, and led by trained educators rather than dropped in by an outside facilitator once a week.

Grounded Kids in the research

In 2025 a research team from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center and Emory University used the Grounded Kids curriculum as the intervention in a published feasibility study of yoga for children and adolescents undergoing hematopoietic cell transplant. Read about the study.

Where to read more

Evidence-based yoga in schools, the short version for school leaders
Sixteen studies on yoga and mindfulness for kids and teens, summarized
Our full bibliography, 136 sources
Evidence-based research questions, answered

Bringing this into your school

Grounded Kids offers customized programming and materials for educators who are curious about, or ready for, yoga and mindfulness with their students. Our training pathway prepares the people already in the building to lead it, which is what the research says works best.

To get started, reach out to Amy Haysman at amy@groundedkids.com.