SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

ON

YOGA AND ADHD CHILDREN

SUBMITTED TO:
MS. AROONMALINI BARUAH

ASST. PROFESSOR

CSBS, DIBRUGARH UNIVERSITY

SUBMMITTED BY:
MONISHA BARUAH (16)

NABASHREE BURAGOHAIN (19)

NIHARIKA BORGOHAIN (20)

3RD SEMESTER, M.A. IN APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY

CSBS, DIBRUGARH UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT
ADHD is a chronic condition including attention difficulty, hyperactivity and impulsiveness. It
often begins in childhood and can persist into adulthood. It may contribute to low self esteem,
troubled relationships and difficulty at school and at work. ADHD is a disorder that makes it
difficult for a person to pay attention and control impulsive behavior. The purpose of this review
is to study how yoga effects on ADHD children of the age group of 5-16 years. For which
several researches have been collected and 6 researches are found relevant and suitable for this
systematic review. Results found form this papers which suggests that structured environment is
needed for yoga practicing for beneficial and to get fast effect on ADHD children. And it also
suggests that discontinuous practicing yoga hampers in the growth and development of children
with ADHD children. Yoga is recommended as a complementary treatment with medical
interventions.

INTRODUCTION
ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER (ADHD): Attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder is a neurological condition that usually occurs in school going children.
ADHD is one of the most commonly diagnosed childhood psychiatric disorders. It includes
behavioral difficulties life impulsivity excessive motor activity and difficulties in sustaining
attention (Carson, Butcher & Mineka, 2000). ADHD is more prevalent among pre adolescent
boys. It is a chronic condition associated with poor outcome in academic achievement, social and
employment instability (Weiss & Hechtman, 1993). For ADHD medical treatment is available
and these medications are essential to reduce the symptoms of hyper activity.

ADHD was considered a condition that children had “grew out of” before they reached
adulthood. The symptoms of ADHD do change with time, however. For example, childhood
hyperactivity may decrease as an adult finds healthy way to channel their energy. ADHD in
children can include a wide range of academic, social and behavioral problems like trouble
staying on task, taking a long time to complete assignments or having difficulty sitting. Child
with ADHD poses some extra challenges and getting the best treatment and support can be key
to managing child’s symptoms. ADHD in children the treatment may involve medications and it
can help children manage their impulses, stay focused, and avoid distractions. But these
medications have certain side effects like Nausea Headache and sleep disturbances. Research
evidence shows that exercise can stimulate the cerebellum and helps ADHD, Dyslexia and
Dyspraxia. There for exercise can help in the treatment of children with ADHD. As a
complimentary the yoga can be intervened in these children.

YOGA : Yoga is an ancient school of Indian philosophy. It include within the Orthodox (Astika )
schools of philosophy. Now a day’s yoga is growing as a contemporary field of psychology. It is
basically a practical application of Indian philosophical theories. The concept of yoga is an old
as civilization. It has been derived from the Sanskrit word “ Yuj ”, that means to unite or to join.
It is an ancient Indian practice that is rooted in Hindu religion based on the principles of mind-
body medicine. There are three essential elements of yoga these are asana (postures),
pranayama(breathing exercise) and dhyana (meditation) that can be practiced through multiple
steps.In the ancient system of Indian philosophy, yoga played an important role in prevention,
maintenance and promotion of health. Scriptures related to yoga that its practice lead to inner
evolutions and understanding of one’s own inner self-leading to total transformation in
individuals consciousness. In recent years practitioners in yoga demonstrated the power of mind
over body and also observed its importance in preventions and curative aspects of health.
Though the studies are limited, yoga has shown benefits for an array of neuropsychiatric
disorders.

OBJECTIVES

1.To find out the relevant studies on yoga and ADHD.

2. To understand the therapeutic effectiveness of yoga in ADHD.

3. To understand the feasibility of yoga in ADHD children.

METHODOLOGY
In this review eight research paper were reviewed that are relevant to our objectives published on
online database –PMC, PeerJ, UCONN Library, and SAGEPUB. From these research papers six
papers were selected, which were done on children diagnosed with ADHD of age range from 5-
18 years in the year of 2001 to 2019 conducted .These research studies were systematically
reviewed and summarized as follows.
FEASIBILITY OF YOGA IN ADHD CHILDREN
In the researches different type of yoga are implemented to the children with ADHD. In
interventions yoga practices like pranayama, Asana, Meditations, mindfulness training, breath
control, and aerobics are implemented. It was seen that the symptomatic ADHD children were
also able to learn the yoga (V.R. Hariprasad et.al. 2013). However some researchers have found
difficulties in implementation of yoga to the children with ADHD. In absence of yoga instructor
for few times children creates lots of chaotic situations by heating each other (B. Pradhan et.al.
2010). Due to this reason some children were eliminated from the yoga session. To maximize the
therapeutic effect of yoga in ADHD regularity in practice is needed. For this the home session of
yoga for the children are also essential. Because of this reason the training and education of the
caregivers on yoga is also needed for guiding and supervising the children during the home
yoga session (V.R. Hariprasad et.al. 2013). Some other measures like yoga DVD can also be
used to aid the home yoga session. However some parents reported irregularities in home yoga
sessions due to the scarcity of their time to guide the children (V.R. Hariprasad et.al. 2013). It is
also reported that some children performed better in structured setting rather than in home
environment.

THERAPEUTIC EFFECTIVENESS OF YOGA IN ADHD

There are total six papers were reviewed with the aim to understand the effect of yoga on ADHD
children. It was found that yoga has a positive effect on ADHD symptoms like attention deficit
and hyperactivity (A. Petsche, 2016, S. Venkatesan, 2008). Some researchers have shown that
effectiveness of yoga can be seen in different way on ADHD children. Yoga interventions can
decrease the reaction time and enhance the accuracy rate of ADHD children in visual pursuit test
(C.J. Huang et.al, 2016). Researchers also found than yoga can decrease the inattentive
symptoms (Cohen et.al. 2018).Yoga also improves the discriminative ability in determination
test (C.J. Huang et.al, 2016). This is the strong evidence which suggest that yoga can help to
enhance the attentional span, selective attention and perception. Yoga helps to exhibit greater
motor ability and better allocation of attentional resources. Thus it improves the cognitive task
and executive functions in ADHD children (Cohen et.al. 2018). Biological processes are also the
result of yoga which helps in sustaining attention for longer period of time (C.J. Huang et.al,
2016). It was also reported that practicing yoga enables children to cope with more than one
instruction at a time (P. Jensen, 2004)

Yoga has facilitative impact on self control, relaxation and concentration, self efficacy, body
postures, balance in motor activity (C.J. Huang et.al, 2016). It is also seen that yoga also
manipulates verbal working and memory in children (B. Pradhan et.al. 2010).

In a research it was reported that a breathing technique called staircase breathing is effective to
decrease hyperactivity restlessness and loss of control. It was also reported that through the use
of relaxation technique sleeping also improved (P. Jensen, 2004).
LIMITATIONS
The research studies were done on ADHD children under medication treatment. So the
improvements that are seen cannot be told as a result of yoga practice exclusively. But it is also
seen that the children with ADHD under medication improved better with practice of yoga than
the children with ADHD who did not practice yoga in spite of continuation of medications (V.R.
Hariprasad et.al. 2013)

In this systematic review paper only six papers were included. This number is too small to give
any conclusive comment on yoga effect on ADHD depending on these researches.

SUMMERY:
Now a days yoga is growing as a complementary method in mental health. This review paper
was conducted with the aim to see the effect of yoga in children diagnosed with ADHD and its
feasibility to use ADHD children. The symptomatic ADHD children can learn the yoga by
practicing when they are guided and supervised. But constant supervision is needed for effective
implementation which is a major challenge in applying yoga technique in ADHD. It will be more
helpful to implement practice of yoga in a structured form rather than in home environment.
Medications are helpful to reduce the symptoms of ADHA. So it is beneficial to apply the yoga
technique with the combinations of medications.

The yoga practice is helpful in decreasing the ADHD symptoms in ADHD children. Yoga
increases the attention span, decrease the reaction time and a accuracy rate in ADHD children.
Yoga helps ADHD children to gain more self control, motor ability. Thus improving the
attention span and motor ability yoga can improve the executive functioning in ADHD children.

CONCLUSION
Yoga can be a good complementary treatment for ADHD children with continuation of
medications. For effective implementation of yoga continuous supervision is needed in a
structured environment. This review was done on a very few numbers of research paper. So for
better understanding broad and elaborate research is recommended.
REFERENCES
 Anand, K.S, & Verma, R.(2014). Yoga in Neuro-Psychiatry. Journal of Yoga and
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 Chou, C.C. & Huang, C.J. (2017). Effect of an 8-week Yoga Programme on Sustained
Attention and Discrimination Function in Children with Attention Deficit Disorder. DOI:
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 Jensen, P.S. & Kenny, D.T. (2004). The Effect of Yoga on the Behavior of Boys with
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