How can yoga help children with special needs?

For Oxana Cresswell, a yoga teacher at TAG Youth Club for young people with disabilities or additional needs in Richmond, yoga is more than just stretching.

It's about giving children a way to connect with their bodies, improve their focus, and find peace in their own way. 

Oxana practices Yoga Nidra, or “yogic sleep,” a meditative technique that deeply relaxes the body while keeping the mind alert.

She explains, “Fifteen minutes of Yoga Nidra is equivalent to four hours of sleep.”

But Oxana knows that every child is "unique and requires a different approach", so she adapts her methods to suit their needs, keeping the sessions dynamic and fun. 

Each child responds differently to yoga.

For children with ADHD, Oxana has observed that “they sometimes find it slow and struggle to understand.”

However, for children with Down syndrome, yoga can be “really beneficial" due to their "hyper-flexible bodies and ability to relax".  

To keep her students engaged, Oxana limits each class to a maximum of ten children, allowing her to tailor the experience for each child’s needs.

She also brings in seasonal themes throughout the year - “Spring, Early Summer, Middle Summer, Late Summer, Autumn, and Winter” - to keep the sessions varied.

With simple props like balloons to represent lungs and trampolines to show how the diaphragm works, Oxana finds ways to make learning fun.  

To connect with young minds, Oxana incorporates playful elements: animal toys represent different yoga poses, like a meerkat for posture and a hedgehog for back rolls.

Each session ends with a “rainbow meditation,” where children relax under blankets and pillows as Oxana guides them through the colours of the rainbow, each symbolising different energy centres in the body.  

Oxana also encourages her students to bring yoga into their daily lives with simple techniques they can do at home because “consistency is the most important thing”.

One example is the “365-breathing technique” - taking deep breaths three times a day at a rhythm of six breaths per minute for five minutes, which “helps to balance stress”.  

When asked what she enjoys most about teaching yoga to children with special needs, Oxana reflects, “For me, the purpose of this to improve the lives of the children.

I want them to have good posture, good breathing and a good feeling about their bodies.”