Mindfulness and Yoga in Schools A Guide for Teachers and Practitioners

CHAPTER 10: THE YOGA CLASSROOM • 213

and socially appropriate” (Harper, 2013). What we are asking when we ask our students
to pay attention is something that is very hard to do, even for adults (Harper, 2013). What
we want for them and for us is to become skilled at: (a) choosing what we are attending
to, (b) filtering out distractions, (c) noticing when we leave ourselves and/or the moment,
(d) reengaging, and (e) to keep doing so for a set period of time. That five-step process is the
definition of paying attention and can be taught and practiced (Harper, 2013). So, too, can
physical presence, emotion regulation, behavioral regulation, and compassion and kindness
in friendships (see Chapter 3).
We exist as our bodies—nourishing, nurturing, challenging, attuning, and learning
(Cook-Cottone, 2015). Douglass (2011) posits that thinking is only and always embodied.
She holds that yoga is an educational tool and an embodied learning in which practitioners
systematically engage “in the process and action of thinking through the body” (p. 85).
Embodiment, as seen in yoga, promotes well-being at the neurological and physiological
levels in these three ways: (a) enhances neurological integration (i.e., neurological
differentiation and linkage); (b) reduces reactivity, increases reflective engagement, and
improves access to restful and restorative states; and (c) improves emotional and behavioral
regulation (Cook-Cottone, 2015; see Figure 10.2).

Supporting Improved Neurological Integration

First, formal yoga practices can help with self-regulation by facilitating mind–body integra-
tion (Cook-Cottone, 2015). Neurological integration allows for independent and effective
self-regulation (Cook-Cottone, 2015). Students may lack neurological integration for a
variety of reasons including their childhood environments and quality of familial relation-
ships, a genetic or physiological background (i.e., physical or emotional trauma) that has
resulted in a brain that needs more practice and support for integration than most brains,
or there has been engagement in behaviors or practices that disrupted integration (Cook-
Cottone, 2015; Siegel, 2012). A lack of integration along with a history of trauma can lead
students to negative health, psychological, and relational outcomes (Ahlers, Stanick, &
Machek, 2016; Telles, Singh, & Balkrishna, 2012; see Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography
Becomes Your Biology and How You Can Heal by Nakazawa [2015]). Our students are stressed

INTERNAL

Cognitive

Emotional

Physiological

EXTERNAL

Family

Community

Culture

YOGA

♦ Improved

neurological

integration

♦ Access to reflective

engagement and

restorative states

♦ Enhanced emotional

and behavioral

regulation

FIGURE 10.2 Neurological and physiological

benefits of yoga.

Source: Cook-Cottone, 2015; used with permission.