Kids who attend the best private high schools in the U.S. experience several advantages: access to challenging and unique academic courses, small class sizes, vigorous college preparation, and numerous after school programs. Private schools are competitive, though, and sometimes the workload in this environment can be daunting for students.
A recent study involving two private schools in the Northeast U.S. — one an urban day school and the other a boarding school — discovered that about half of the students surveyed exhibited signs of chronic stress, such as depression, anxiety, substance abuse, lack of sleep, social isolation, etc. What this report highlights, in part, according to an article by The Atlantic, is that with the academic and extracurricular demands students face daily, what they too often sacrifice is free time. However, it is vital that students find an outlet to help refocus their minds.
Service as Stress Relief
Members of the yoga outreach Year of Service group take a yoga class at Blooming Life Yoga Studio + School during Community Day.
With these issues in mind, University High School introduced a yoga outreach Year of Service group this year with the help of the Indy Yoga Movement. Indy Yoga Movement is a nonprofit organization that brings yoga to schools in Central Indiana. UHS also partnered with Blooming Life Yoga Studio + School in Zionsville, which houses the country’s first certified 200-hour teacher training program for teens.
Senior Maddie Smith, a member of the Year of Service group, said, “Yoga allows students to become dedicated to their everyday practices, excited to pursue their goals, and encouraged to seek personal growth, starting with self control.”
In their Year of Service group, students like Maddie have learned that yoga teaches students to project their emotions in a healthy way, rather than keeping them suppressed. Yoga presents students with an opportunity to pause, focus on their breath, move their bodies, and regain awareness. This provides students the energy they need to retain the mass amounts of information they receive on a daily basis.
Meditation is an important component of a yoga practice, and our yoga outreach group experienced it during their class at Blooming Life Yoga + School.
Senior Jessica Chinsky explained how the year has gone so far with her involvement in the group. “The first semester was more about educating ourselves to educate others,” she said. “In the beginning, we read these articles about the impact that yoga has on your brain. It is scientifically proven to help your brain, which I did not know before. I thought it would be more of a surface-level impact.”
The faculty coordinator of the yoga outreach group, Lade Akande, envisions big plans for students for the remainder of the semester. “We’ve learned a lot about the effects yoga can have on your health,” Akande said. “Now we’re starting to volunteer at local middle schools, and we are also trying to see if we can figure out how we could possibly teach yoga in other centers as well, besides just schools.”
Chinsky says one of the most memorable activities for the group has been traveling to Blooming Life Yoga + School for a yoga session. The kids in the yoga group have also learned leadership, research skills, and how to apply research to real life.
Sophomore Molly Risk believes in the benefits of teaching yoga to others. She said, “If we teach this generation the benefits of yoga, they will eventually be the leaders who teach younger generations to think and act with more awareness and this pattern will continue to inspire positive thoughts and behaviors worldwide.”
Yoga Initiatives at UHS
The yoga outreach Year of Service group poses for a photo after their yoga class on Community Day.
Recently, the yoga outreach group received a grant from the Service Learning Action Fund, which is a program that supports teachers and schools engaging in service learning projects. The group used the grant money to buy yoga mats for UHS to keep for future yoga initiatives, donate to the Indy Yoga Movement for use, and share with students when they go into their partner schools.
Since interest in yoga at UHS is growing, the school is introducing several new yoga-related initiatives this year. They are:
- A Yoga Club was launched in December 2015 that is now open to all UHS students.
- Yoga is also being integrated into sports practices and offered after school for faculty and students.
- A summer program for athletes will be offered through Indiana Primetime Sports for all UHS athletes.
- Discussions are ongoing about offering a yoga class as a PE alternative in the school’s curriculum.
For more information about the yoga outreach Year of Service groups or how University High School is using yoga, please contact Lade Akande at lakande@universityhighschool.org.
About Year of Service
University High School’s Year of Service is a school-wide program intended to teach students about authentic, sustainable, long-term service that makes a significant impact. There are three levels of participation for students:
- Level 100 (such as the March of Dimes group) is for younger students and focuses on direct service
- Level 200 is for upperclassmen and focuses on a community issue
- Level 300 is a service leadership track and includes participation in the Jefferson Foundation Awards Students in Action program