11
MOST CHILDREN ARE natural-born yogis. You see it yourself every day—your kids monkeying around everywhere, mimicking animals, bridges, trees and twisting themselves up into pretzels! Even from the time they’re infants, you can notice their thumb and index finger touching lightly in Chin Mudra or thumb cozily tucked in the other fingers in Chinmaya Mudra both of which naturally help development of the brain. As your children grow, their spontaneous play and frolicking is a lot like yogic postures or asanas in a fun, unstructured, manner!
However, much like you, the demands of modern life gradually lead them to unnatural body positions hunching over a computer with tightened shoulders or walking bent over and sideways carrying an overloaded backpack to school. Add in decreased physical activity and you can see how easy it is for them to forget their innate nature.
When your children adopt yoga, breathwork, meditation, and mantras into their lives, they grow up healthier and happier and continue these practices into adulthood.
Now that yoga has become popular everywhere, many parents today are eager to explore these different postures and techniques at home with their families. Maybe you even have a yoga practice of your own you’d like to share with your kids—or even better, start one together with them! Many children today have been introduced to yoga and simple meditation exercises in school and, thanks to initiatives like the Mindful Schools Curriculum that empower educators to cultivate awareness and resilience with compassionate action in education, students across the United States are being nurtured and supported socially, emotionally, and academically in “mindful schools” and learning environments. A growing body of research demonstrates the integration of mindfulness programs led by qualified teachers helps children thrive not only in the classroom with improved attention and focus, emotional regulation, and social skills, but also with reducing feelings of stress at home and enhanced well-being.[1]
Yoga and Ayurveda
Yoga and Ayurveda are sister sciences that emanate from the Vedas and share the same goal of seeking balance between mind, body, and spirit to prevent disease and live life to its fullest potential. While many people today use yoga as a popular way to enhance their fitness routines, its therapeutic context is essentially Ayurvedic in nature, and traditionally it was meant as a spiritual practice, or sadhana, for managing the mind. In fact, Ayurveda is the earliest known medical science to recommend exercise, or vyayama, for preventive health and disease management. Ayurveda recommends yoga asanas to enhance physical and mental health and well-being, raise consciousness, and restore balance to the doshas.
In Ayurvedic terms, these practices help to calm, energize, and integrate body, mind, and spirit. You can adopt yoga as part of an Ayurvedic protocol to help eliminate accumulated or imbalanced doshas from deeper tissues and aid removal of excess vata and ama—toxins that may have accumulated in bones and joints. Yoga postures and sequences balance all of the doshas, promote longevity, aid rejuvenation, and enhance awareness. They also balance the energy centers in your subtle body, known as chakras.
eight limbs of yoga
Despite popular belief, yoga is not merely the practice of body postures and sequential movements (asanas) or stretches, but encompasses a personal and societal ethic, breathwork, and meditation. Many people are surprised to learn that yoga has eight limbs, each its own unique principle to cultivate a life expressing the highest human potential at all levels—physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual. The purpose of cultivating this alignment and oneness within yourself and with all of creation is to unleash your inner potential as a human being. While some of these practices need to be introduced gradually to children, like advanced asanas or breathwork, it is very important to seed the right principles and practices, no matter what their age—and it’s never too early or late to start! A child’s yoga practice can have innumerable benefits and help children feel calm, balanced, and aligned with their own mind-body consciousness as well as the world around them. Below are the eight limbs of yoga you may want to research independently as your knowledge of Ayurveda deepens:
•Yama (practices toward the environment and community like nonviolence)
•Niyama (practices for ourselves like cleanliness and contentment)
•Asana (postures and sequential movements)
•Pranayama (breathwork)
•Pratyahara (withdrawal of senses)
•Dharana (concentration)
•Dhyana (meditation)
•Samadhi (complete integration and living in a meditative or enlightened state)
In the same way you can adapt your children’s lifestyle routines to their prakriti or vikriti (current state of imbalance), you can also tailor yoga practices to support and balance the doshas. Ayurveda’s adaption of yoga and other tools is based on balancing subtle energies in the body and integrating knowledge of yoga postures and different actions of the breath into daily routines for mental and physical healing and well-being. For chronic health conditions, yoga is adapted to balance the doshas and reduce the risk of any further complications or injury. Just as you can stabilize the body through a physical practice, you can also stabilize the mind. When you strive to balance the doshas with the complementary practices of yoga and Ayurveda, you can also balance the trigunas, or the qualities of mind we discussed in chapter 7. Practicing yoga can reduce tamas or lethargy, balance rajas or feelings of restlessness and aggression, and enhance sattva, a clear, calm, light, productive, and happy state of mind. Yoga, breathwork, and meditation work together to help restore children to their prakriti, or state of individual homeostasis and health. The knowledge of your child’s constitution and tendencies you’ve learned from previous chapters along with an awareness of the trigunas can help you specifically tailor your child’s yoga practice to the doshas, as we will discuss later in this chapter.
BENEFITS OF YOGA
Yoga, breathwork, meditation, and mantra are all tools you can use to help your children feel deeply grounded and aligned with the universe. This promotes peace, health, and harmony both on and off the yoga mat! Sharing these lifestyle therapies as a family is also a wonderful way to bond with your children and show them how special they are to you. Maybe you have more than one child. For parents looking for ways to create quality time to spend individually with their children, simple yoga sequences are the perfect way to be present and playful. Fifteen minutes of one-on-one time can be especially meaningful for a child who has siblings. Following is a list of the ways your children can benefit from yoga, breathwork, and meditation:
•Stress management: Children move from the flight and freeze mode (sympathetic nervous system) to the rest and digest mode (parasympathetic nervous system)
•Increased focus
•Improved mental health; reduction of anxiety, depression, and eating disorders
•Enhanced physical health, digestion, and metabolism
•Improved academic performance at school
•Improved memory and cognition
•Increased creativity and lateral thinking
•Improved sleep
•Boosted self-awareness and self-esteem
•Promotion of attitudes of compassion and cooperation rather than competitiveness
•Breaking free from digital media and overscheduling, which soothes the eyes, sensory organs, and mind
•Managing specific conditions such as indigestion, headaches, autism, and ADHD
•Reduced behavioral issues
•Improved immunity and vitality
•Better physical and mental flexibility and strength
•Healthy habits to carry into adulthood that aid quality of life and longevity
•Resilience to cope with stressors in a healthy and productive way
Yoga Sequences for Children
Yoga sequences are combinations of primary postures that include Sun Salutations, standing poses, seated poses, and balancing postures. Each of these asanas has physical and mental effects. For example, Vajrasana (the Diamond Pose or Thunderbolt) is a very common asana practice known to improve the stability and tone of knee joints, legs, and thighs and used as a tool to manage lower back issues. It is also an asana that supports meditation practices as it provides the perfect geometry for optimum body stability and facilitates relaxation, concentration, and complete peace of mind. Generally, balancing poses require attention, increase lung function, and generate heat, while standing postures are weight-bearing and bring strength and stability. Seated poses are the most stable yoga poses and enhance groundedness and concentration. Sun Salutations are practiced as a flow of various asanas that will bring optimal flexibility, strength, and physical alignment to the body.
Knowing your child’s constitution along with the basic understanding of the doshas you now have can help you adapt these complementary practices to your child’s unique nature and keep pace with their changing day-to-day needs. Understanding the fundamental anatomy of the doshas adds another helpful layer of information when preparing to introduce yoga sequences to your children. According to Ayurveda, the seat of kapha is the chest and upper clavicle region, the seat of pitta the abdomen, and the seat of vata the lower abdominal region below the navel, particularly the colon.
Keeping the fundamental qualities of the doshas in mind can help you choose the best yoga postures and sequences to keep your children in balance and create your own along the way! As you know, kapha and vata require warmth to maintain balance while pitta requires cooling. Here are some general principles to refer to when selecting asanas for your child. Please be aware the same postures can become heating or cooling depending on the effort, speed, and duration of the practice.
Generally, supine poses on the back are relaxing while prone positions on the belly are more dynamic and heating. Seated poses like forward bends or rotating postures are considered balancing for vata by releasing blocked energy, and inverted postures can be both heating and cooling but are great for kapha. Forward bends release tension from the mid-abdomen region where pitta accumulates, and twists can be heating but also aid digestion and release accumulated pitta. Backbends generally kindle agni but must be done carefully by vata types to avoid injuries. Restorative poses generate heat and can be supported by a range of different props. You’ll find simple yoga sequences for younger children and teens on the following pages, but first here are some yoga tips for parents:
A PLAYFUL PRACTICE: Kids love fun and games! Get things moving with yoga freeze dance and ask children to strike their favorite yoga pose (or make one up) every time the music stops. Be prepared for lots of giggling! Another yoga game is to challenge children to run across the room to music and pause when you call out different postures like Tree Pose, for example. The children who can hold the poses continue with the game and whoever reaches the end of the room first gets to decide the next posture kids have to hold or pick the next game.
BE FLEXIBLE: Kids are not as disciplined as adults, so allow for fidgeting, giggling, goofing around, nonparticipation, breaks, and imperfection. Relate to them with humor while setting appropriate limits, especially to avoid injuries.
TRY CREATIVE TECHNIQUES: Animal yoga and partner yoga are two great options. Kids love Cat and Cow Pose and will often meow or moo along making funny sounds and imitating different kinds of animals. They love variations too; your Butterflies can sway in the wind just as your Trees can! Children will enjoy partnering up with friends and the challenge of creative directions.
AN ACTIVE PRACTICE: As kids get older and into their teens, it helps to make the practice very active so it can dissipate energy and reduce rajas.
AVOID POWER STRUGGLES AND LEAD BY EXAMPLE! Parenting is often about picking your battles, and a yoga practice that is meant to relax everyone shouldn’t be one of them. Model positive resolve by doing your own yoga regularly, even if it’s only a short practice…especially if all you have time for is a very, very short practice! When you take care of yourself, you are better able to take care of your kids.
a sample yoga sequence for younger children
•Warm-up with jumping jacks or jogging in place. If they are in a group setting, one child can be the leader and do a fun warm-up others can follow.
•Standing balancing poses like Tree, Warrior, and Chair to transition to sitting and seated poses
•Alternatively, if they are little older, Sun Salutations
•Cat and Cow Pose
•Transition to Downward Dog, Cobra, and then Child’s Pose
•Sit up for Butterfly, Mill Churning, Camel
•On their back, Boat and Wind Releasing Pose (you may hear giggling!)
•On their stomach, Locust, Cobra, Flying Super Person, and Bow Pose
•Lie on their backs for Shavasana, or final relaxation—a time you can build in some affirmations and guided imagery
a sample yoga sequence for teens (adapt to the doshas)
•Seated rotations
•Cat and Cow
•Downward Dog
•Transition to Standing Forward Bend
•Warrior 1, 2, and 3
•Triangle
•Twisting
•Sun Salutations for a few rounds
•Chair Pose
•Similar sequence as younger children on back (add cycling) and belly
•Shavasana or final relaxation can be longer
yoga for your child’s dosha
Now that you have viewed your child and their tendencies through an Ayurvedic lens, you are probably eager to learn more about the ways you can use yoga to support your child’s unique constitution. Here, we’ll explore principles that will help you customize your child’s yoga practice to keep the doshas aligned and counterbalance disease tendencies.
A pitta child may be prone to anger or jealousy as an imbalance and may overdo exercise. A vata child may be restless and lacking in focus. A kapha child may have a tendency to be lazy.
Vata needs regular, grounding, slow, and warming yoga, which is restorative, gentle, and at less than their capacity. Vata children are drawn to variety and overdoing things, but most of all need routine and consistency. Though these children naturally crave a fast pace, it helps if they slow down and hold poses for a bit longer than they may be inclined. Emphasize warming, circulating, and downward movement of energy with standing poses held for about three breaths. A slow even breathing rhythm keeps vata balanced and ensures good flow of prana. Poses that are especially beneficial for them are floor sequences, seated and standing forward bends, gentle backbends, twisting (which aids their variable digestion), Tree Pose, Mountain Pose, and a long, slow relaxation to end the practice.
Pitta may be drawn to intense and heating yoga, which is competitive with their tendency toward perfectionism (especially for teenagers), which they need to counterbalance. These children need slow, relaxing, nurturing, gentle movements with an emphasis on noncompetitive yoga. Forward bends are cooling and spinal twists help disperse built-up heat and tension from the stomach and small intestines. (Take care during backbends and spinal compression not to overdo things.) Seated and lying twists soothe pitta, and overall twisting performed with lunging or kneeling is very soothing. Slow Sun Salutations are great—just make sure your children are practicing in a cool environment or at a cool time of day, preferably before sunrise or in the evening.
Kapha needs to rev up their routine and have an energetic practice they can easily switch around to break up monotony! Kapha children may resist the practice but are actually very strong constitutionally, and this will help activate their mind-body system and ensure they don’t slip into laziness. A warmer, faster-paced class that stimulates respiration, increases circulation, and induces sweating is especially good for them. Kapha constitutions should minimize floor asanas that can lead to feelings of lethargy and wanting to take a short nap! Fast-paced Sun Salutations and standing and supported or modified inverted poses are very beneficial.
contraindications and guidelines
Yoga is a health practice and, often, a therapeutic tool. It is important to ensure your children learn yoga in a class or studio from a trained practitioner at least initially in your presence to avoid injuries.
Because children are naturally so much more flexible than adults, it’s important to be especially mindful they don’t overextend their joints or push themselves if they feel any type of pain. Anytime children are practicing yoga in a group, keep enough space between them to ensure they don’t bump into each other and cause injuries, and keep the group to a manageable size. Always remember to counter poses and avoid overstretching or overextending muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Easier poses are a good place to begin before moving on to more challenging ones as children have to build strength and stability before beginning advanced yoga practices. The duration of the practice should not be so long that younger kids get fidgety and unfocused, which can increase their propensity to get injured. A children’s yoga teacher will be aware of all of these concerns.
CHILDREN 3–10 YEARS OLD
•Children under ten should wait up to ten seconds and take a couple of breaths before transitioning into the next pose. The total time for a child’s yoga session should not be more than twenty minutes.
•Children are advised not to perform asanas for long durations of time or any practices at all that require holding the breath.
•Yoga for children involves gentle stretches and movements, often mimicking animals and incorporating games.
•Imaginative stories about yoga practices are the best methods of teaching yoga to kids.
•Always demonstrate the posture, rather than explaining it. Use the same method when trying to correct poses during practical sessions.
•Avoid extreme forward- and backward-bending asanas.
•Avoid headstands and handstands.
•Avoid overstretching or pushing too hard.
•Yogic practice should be done on an empty or light stomach.
•Children should practice yoga under the supervision of an expert/trained yoga teacher with proper guidance and never alone.
•If a child complains of any discomfort during or after practice, they should be given full attention and medical help, if needed.
•Never compare children with each other.
•Teach yoga with affection and deal with all types of reactions tenderly.
•Basic principles of yoga like yama and niyama should be emphasized while teaching yoga postures to get better results.
ADOLESCENTS UP TO 18 YEARS OLD
•There should be no feelings of competition while practicing yoga.
•Girls should avoid yoga practices during menstruation or focus on a relaxing practice.
•Yoga sequences should gradually progress from basic to more advanced poses to build strength, endurance, and flexibility over time and avoid stress and strain to the muscles and joints. Poses should be followed by pranayama, relaxation, and meditation.
•Asanas should not be practiced in haste or by applying any sort of undue force under any circumstances.
•Attain final positions step-by-step and maintain with eyes closed for an inward awareness within the whole body.
•Maintenance of the final asana is always beneficial as per one’s capacity.
•Yogic practice should be done on an empty or light stomach.
•Duration of time and awareness spent in postures can gradually increase as children transition from childhood to adulthood.
•Adolescents often have a negative body image due to bodily or hormonal changes. Teach with all such considerations in mind, encouraging them as needed.
•Physical movements from one posture to another provide strength, endurance, and flexibility to joints and muscles of growing adolescents.
•Explain what they are doing by telling teens about each practice and how the practice will be beneficial for them. Create a conducive atmosphere for them so that they can share their experiences without any hesitation.[2]
The U.S. National Institutes of Health provide additional guidelines taking into account developmental considerations in a yoga class for children and adolescents.
|
Age |
Duration |
|
Preschool age (3–6 years) |
Total duration: 15–20 minutes Focused awareness: 2–3 minutes Poses: 10 minutes Breathing or singing: 2–3 minutes Guided visualization: 2–3 minutes |
|
school age (7–12 years) |
Total duration: 30–45 minutes Focused awareness: 3–5 minutes Poses: 15–25 minutes (can be incorporated into a story or game) Breathing or singing: 3–5 minutes Guided visualization/relaxation: 5 minutes |
|
Adolescent (13–18 years) |
Total duration: 45–90 minutes Focused awareness: 5–10 minutes Poses: 30–50 minutes Breathing: 5–10 minutes Guided relaxation: 5–10 minutes |
|
Age |
Special Considerations |
|
Preschool and school age |
Use English nature names for poses. Use short and simple instructions. Demonstrate poses. Hold poses for a maximum of 3 breaths. Maintain an attitude of playful calm. Create a safe environment. |
|
Adolescent |
Be sensitive to body image. Use touching adjustments with care; give opportunity to opt out of being touched. Be aware of clothing issues (tight jeans, bare feet, revealing shirts or shorts). Encourage a nonjudgmental and noncompetitive practice. |
Meditation
Meditation is one of the unique tools used in Ayurveda to facilitate harmony and healing in the mind, body, and consciousness. The word meditation is used nowadays to describe many different techniques including concentration, contemplation, guided meditation, breathing exercises, mantra, and meditative movement practices like yoga or even walking meditation. While all these methods operate on diverse mind-body systems such as the senses, mind, emotions, and intellect, the true objective of meditation is to connect oneself with the soul or deep inner self. All practices that achieve this goal serve its true purpose.
Research on structured meditation programs for children and adolescents suggests a myriad of benefits relating to mental and physical health, coping skills, self-regulation, and decreased negative classroom behavior and hyperactivity. Studies of school-based mindfulness instruction have demonstrated improved psychological functioning, behavior, and focus and reduction of ADHD symptoms along with reduced levels of stress, anxiety, and depression, all from simple breathing awareness just a few minutes a day.[3]
The physical benefits of meditation include calming the nervous system, improving immunity, aiding digestion, and relieving headaches and pain. All meditation practices enhance sattva and are deeply restful for the mind, body, and spirit. Even a few minutes a day spent meditating with your children lead, to better physical, mental, and emotional health. While there are various types of meditation techniques, here are some that are easy to practice with children:
•Guided meditation or imagery is a wonderful technique in complementary therapy that allows children and adolescents to follow along with instructions on an app or video or with a practitioner. Used as a therapeutic intervention, it can help psychological functioning, reduce stress, and aid pain management. Be cautious if there is a history of PTSD and consult a mental health practitioner.
•Guided relaxation and Yoga Nidra: This is similar to the final resting pose done in yoga when you slowly bring attention to different parts of the body from head to toe and progressively focus the breath to induce a relaxation response. When lying down, this can be done as a guided practice of progressive and deep relaxation.
•Mindfulness is a well-known technique generally practiced sitting with closed eyes and bringing one’s attention to the breath. When the attention drifts away, the instruction is to bring it back without judgment. This does not require any training or years of practice. However, we have to ensure that the duration is age appropriate.
•Prayer and mantra meditation is a simple way for kids to meditate in the morning or at bedtime and can include focusing on a simple prayer or repeating a mantra like Om. A 2012 study showed that mantra meditation can improve brain health and enhance cognitive function as well as visuospatial and verbal memory. Another research project in 2017 demonstrated that chanting certain mantras may stimulate these effects by helping to synchronize the left and right sides of the brain and promote relaxing alpha brain waves.[4]
meditation tips for kids and teens
•Meditation is about relaxation. Kids are so programmed to succeed that it is a good idea to help them relax and meditate effortlessly with praise.
•Having thoughts during meditation is natural. Encourage children of all ages not to judge their thoughts, but merely observe them.
•Yoga, exercise, and breathwork all help in reducing the state of rajas or restlessness and help kids relax.
•Create an atmosphere for children that is quiet and appealing without distractions.
•Length of time and frequency of meditation should vary. Pediatricians normally recommend that preschool children meditate a few minutes per day, grade school children 3–10 minutes once or twice daily, and teens and adults 5–45 minutes per day based on their preference.
adapting meditation to the doshas
•Vata tends to be restless and may be drawn to meditation that has movement involved: guided imagery, mantra meditation, and breathing meditation.
•Pitta also does well with guided imagery; cooling mudras, water imagery, mindfulness, and loving-kindness meditations to let go of anger and resentment.
•Kapha benefits from active breathing followed by meditation to support clarity of thought and relieve dullness.
Mantras
Mantra practices center the mind utilizing a sound, phrase, or word chanted either silently in the mind or out loud. Mantra meditation is an essential practice in various types of yoga and assists to deepen inner consciousness. Traditionally, children are taught prayers growing up based on their faith. In the same way, Sanskrit chants have been taught to children in Vedic cultures right from an early age.
Mantras can be defined as the yoga of sound or thought of as asanas for the mind that use the vibrations of sound therapy to heal and balance physiology and emotions. Mantra chanting can induce a calm, meditative effect, help children feel grounded, and improve vagal tone. Mantra meditation is extremely useful for harnessing active minds and bodies—calming pitta, clearing kapha lethargy, and alleviating vata imbalances.
Mantras and chants for children can be positive affirmations, prayers, or intentions that can be recited aloud or in their minds and can be in any language (Sanskrit, Latin, Gurmukhi, Arabic, Pali, or Hebrew, to name a few). The primordial sound om, a universal mantra, is akin to mantras and prayers from other traditions, such as Amen, Ameen, and Shalom. Following are some Sanskrit mantras children can practice daily. In cases where children may be too young to chant more complex mantras, the usual practice in traditional Ayurvedic households is for parents to play the mantras softly in the background so children can benefit from the sound vibrations.
Children might also enjoy chanting mantras in the morning or evening at bedtime. Ayurveda suggests chanting in multiples of three, a number that connects us to the past, present, and future; the three layers of existence of the physical, subtle, and causal; the three cosmic qualities of sattva, rajas, and tamas; and the three doshas. The traditional method for counting mantras in Ayurveda is the mala—a string of prayer beads. Children may wish to use a sandalwood, lotus seed, or pearl mala if this appeals to them and chant either silently or aloud.
om mani padme hum
Om Mani Padme Hum is the six-syllabled Sanskrit mantra specifically associated with the Bodhisattva of Compassion. The first word, Om, is a sacred syllable. Mani means bead or jewel. Padme is the lotus flower, and Hum symbolizes the spirit of enlightenment. Thus, Om Mani Padme Hum means that based on the practice of a path, which is an inseparable union of method and wisdom, a person can transform their mind, body, and speech into the pure, pleasant, and elevated state of being.
gayatri mantra
The Gayatri mantra is a universal prayer from the Vedas and refers to the innate and inspiring higher self—”that from which all is born.” First the Gayatri, “the spirit behind the sun,” is praised, then meditated upon and channeled to purify and elevate the intellect and ability to discern truth and untruth. The Gayatri mantra is recognized as the essence and true knowledge of the Vedas and cultivates and hones the ability to acquire knowledge:
Om bhur bhuvah svah
Tat savitur varenyam
Bhargo devasya dhimahi
Dhiyo yo nah prachodayat
We meditate on the glory of the creator who has created the three-dimensional universe with the past, present, and future, who is the embodiment of true knowledge and intellect, who is the remover of all darkness and ignorance and promotes illumination within.
Regularly chanting this mantra can help establish and calm the mind, and in turn lead to happiness and success in life. The Gayatri is a declaration of gratitude, to both the nurturing sun and the spirit.
shanti mantras
Shanti literally translates to “peace,” and the Shanti mantras are intended to establish peace and calm at all levels. There are many such peace chants from the ancient Indian teachings, the most popular being from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, an ancient Hindu spiritual text:
Om asato ma sat gamaya
Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya
Mrutyorma amrutam gamaya
Om shanti shanti
The exact meaning of this mantra is “Lead me from the untruth to the truth, lead me from the darkness to light, lead me from mortality to immortality, and let peace prevail everywhere.”
Young children can also recite the shorter mantra: Om shanti shanti.
Another simple mantra for children is Aham Prema, a chant that invokes self-love, literally translating to “I am divine love.”
mahamrityunjaya mantra
The Mahamrityunjaya Mantra is a verse from the Rig Veda—the earliest of the Vedas—imparting longevity, protecting one from tragedies, and preventing premature death. This powerful mantra is known to remove fears and heal the entire mind-body system.
Om tryambakam yajamahe sugandhim pushtivardhanam
Urvarukamiva bandhanaan mrutyormuksheeya maamrutaat
This mantra translates as “I worship the three-eyed form of Shiva, who is fragrant and who nourishes all like the fruit falls off from the bondage of the stem, may we be liberated from death, from mortality.”
Remember, you can play these mantras softly for your children if they seem difficult to recite.
Mantras work at different levels within our consciousness based on both the meaning of the mantra and the subtle sound vibrations created by the mantra.
Dr. J has seen firsthand the many ways mantras can help transform individuals and support healing. He still remembers a twelve-year-old boy from Tamilnadu in India who came for a consultation when he was working as the chief medical officer of Ayurvedagram in Bangalore. His parents brought him for an Ayurvedic consultation to help with bed-wetting, nightmares, and anxiety after they had tried other treatment modalities including modern psychiatry. After a comprehensive consultation along with suggestions of herbs and dietary and lifestyle routines, he also recommended the mantra chant “Om hanumate namaha” and asked the boy to chant this mantra eleven times at night before he went to sleep. He also told him the story of Hanuman, the son of wind, and how powerful chanting this mantra is to remove all fears and negative occurrences. The entire family was very grateful to report their son never had any issues after starting the herbs and chanting the mantra every night. Growing up, Dr. J saw his own grandmother suggesting this mantra throughout his childhood to many parents for removing fears and anxiety in their children.
The classic texts of Indian origin record the influence of mantras on both plants and animals, and Ayurveda also recognizes the importance of this realm of medicine. The author of a particular study recording various experiments on plants found that from the stage of seedling to maturity, they were affected by certain types of sound waves, especially mantras. The study revealed that plants have shown a positive response to the particular sound frequency of chanting mantra relative to growth and efficacy curing diseases.[5]
Whether recited, whispered, or meditated upon, the rhythmic vibrations and tones of all kinds of chants can be healing and have the power to help us feel healthier, energized, and positive-minded.
Mantra therapy is one of Ayurveda’s main tools for calming the mind. Two types of mantras are employed: Bija (or seed) mantras and Shakti mantras. Seed mantras are pure, simple sounds that resonate in the body at a particular frequency and activate individual chakras or energy centers of the body. Each of the Bija mantras correlates to the seven chakras, and each of the chakras has an associated dosha. Chanting particular seed sounds is another way you can support the doshas. For instance, chanting the Bija mantra Lam activates the Muladhara or root chakra and related vata dosha. As mentioned earlier, Shakti mantras are related to kindness and can enhance prana, and Prana mantras like So hum (“I am that”) increase sattva.
A child with healthy habits will grow up to be a healthier adult. Conversely, when kids suffer from physical and mental health issues, these can often linger into adulthood and cause many chronic disorders. Early experiences create biological memories while toxic stress undermines the body’s stress response, brain development, cardiovascular system, immune system, and metabolic controls. What better legacy can you provide your children than the tools and techniques of yoga, breathwork, meditation, and mantras to bring them inner peace, grounding, good health, and a calm state of mind? These practices can lead them to a path of resilience they can rely on as they grow older!