IDY National Seminar cum Workshop at SBV 2019, Pondicherry

INTRODUCING PRANAYAMA TO CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL

NEEDS
PELLISSIER Auriane1, Meena Ramanathan2, Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani3

Every individual is different and unique in needs, limitations and strengths and this never
prevents anyone from practicing yoga. Children with special needs may have challenges
which are severe and could last throughout life. They require support in handling their
medical, emotional, or learning problems. Special needs include a wide variety of
disabilities, including

 Physical problems such as muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, chronic asthma,

epilepsy etc.

 Developmental disabilities such as Down’s syndrome, autism, dyslexia, processing

disorders etc.

 Emotional and behavioural difficulties and may be affected by ADHD, bipolar disorder,
oppositional defiance disorder etc.

 Sensory impairments including children who are blind, visually impaired, deaf, limited
in hearing etc.

Special children can have one or a combination of the above mentioned disabilities, making
learning and other activities extremely difficult. They get irritated as they are unable to
express themselves as clearly as they would want to. (1) Mental retardation is one of the
conditions in which yoga may have great potential, especially Pranayama. (2)

As propounded by Maharishi Patanjali, Yoga is composed of eight limbs. The fourth limb is
Pranayama, the practice of extension of the vital force. “Prana” means vital energy or life
force and “Ayama” is extension or expansion. Through different techniques, voluntary
control is brought over respiration, which in turn controls the autonomous nervous system
and influences the mental functions. Pranayama acts on the Pranamaya Kosha, which is the
energy sheath that influences the body on physiological, emotional and subtle level. This
explains how Pranayama works as the link between body, mind, emotion and spirit. (31

Even though every individual is different and unique in needs, limitations and strengths, it
does not prevent anyone from practicing yoga. Like everybody else, children with special
needs benefit from yoga and the practices have to be designed according to their abilities. To

1 PGDYT Student, Center for Yoga Therapy, Education and Research, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth,
Pillaiyarkuppam, Puducherry. a.pellissier@hotmail.fr
2 Deputy Director, CYTER, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth, Puducherry. saineema@yahoo.com
3 Director, CYTER, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth, Puducherry. yognat@gmail.com

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help them enhance the connection that pranayama promotes, the teacher needs to adapt the
techniques, using the breath as a tool.

According to the traditional wisdom of yoga, pranayama is the key factor in bringing about
psychosomatic integration and harmony. A calm mind will be able to process information
much better than an agitated one. Anxiety levels have been demonstrated to decrease
significantly through the applications of yoga in rehabilitation of mentally and physically
handicapped as well as visually impaired children.(4). Uma et al suggested that breath
control used in yoga techniques help mentally retarded special children by improvement in
their locomotor skills and psycho-motor coordination (5)

Performance of nine rounds of mukha bhastrika produced an immediate and statistically

significant decrease in both visual and auditory reaction time. (6) The faster reactivity seen
after mukha bhastrika, may be due to a generalized alteration in information processing at
the primary thalamo-cortical level that occurs during pranayama as postulated by Telles et
al (7).

There are various breathing techniques available to initiate children with special needs. In
her manual of Yoga for Children with Special Needs, Donna Freeman offers a great list of
teaching methods and practical techniques. (8) Here are some of them with few adaptations.
They include consciousness of breath, breath awareness, motor coordination and sound
breathing techniques.

First of all, the practitioner needs to direct their attention to their breath. This consciousness
of the breath can be introduced by numerous breathing toys and props such as bubbles,
pinwheels, harmonica, party blowers, whistles, straw, etc. Kids seem to enjoy practices
when sound is produced. It is also a good way to work on exhalation through intensity and
duration of the sound. For more fun, the teacher can turn this into a game: two partners are
using a straw to blow air one after the other, to move a ball until reaching a specific spot.

Another way to bring breath awareness is by observing the breath of someone else. One
child is lying on their back; another is lying across, resting their head on the first child’s
belly. The first child is breathing slowly and deeply, while the second child is becoming
aware of the rise and fall of their head, following the belly movement.

Once the children are breathing deeply and comfortably, the teacher can add motor
coordination to the breathing techniques. “The flying bird breath” is a great example: in a
crossed legged sitting position, the yogis are lifting their arms over their head by their side
while they inhale, and lowering their arms as they exhale. When the teacher is leading slow
movements with long deep breaths, the children benefit from a sense of relaxation and
calmness. The arm movements help in opening the chest and shoulders, as well as allowing
the lungs to expand. Then variations can be suggested by modifying the speed, or making
the children stand in a row. They move this line as they fly around the room, moving the
arms as wings in coordination with the breath. This synchronization of breath and
movement improves the motor functions of children with special needs, as well as
improving their brain function and learning capacities. It promotes integration of

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 IDY National Seminar cum Workshop at SBV 2019, Pondicherry

proprioceptive information dealing with the position and movement of the musculoskeletal
system with the neural processes in the brain and spinal cord, which control, plan, and relay
motor commands. (9)

Since children enjoy producing sounds, they can be kept engaged and focused, both
physically and mentally by performing such sound-based breathing techniques. Presented
as “the steam machine breath”, kids are standing in a line and they need to imagine that
they are a steam train. They take a natural inhalation and exhale making the sound
“shhhhhhh” as if the steam was coming long and slow. Only on the exhalation, while they
are producing the sound, they move forward making the machine movement with the arms
to cross the room, and see who can go the furthest on one breath. By performing this game,
kids benefit from the cleansing properties of such forceful exhalations. It helps remove old
and stagnant air from the lungs, and cleanses the bloodstream of excess of carbon dioxide.

Mukha bhastrika is one of the techniques taught in regular yoga training imparted for
special children in Pondicherry as part of the outreach programmes of ICYER and Yoganjali
Natyalayam, Pondicherry, India. In this technique, the breath is actively blasted out in
multiple ‘whooshes’ with forced abdominal contractions. Sitting in Vajra Asana, sitting with
a straight back position, deep inhalation is performed with awareness. The mouth is then
puckered up into Kaki Mudra, the crow beak gesture and the breath is blasted out in
multiple, forceful expulsions while simultaneously bringing the head down to the ground.
Then, with a deep inhalation, the head is raised slowly and the subject comes back to the
sitting position. This is one round of mukha bhastrika. It was suggested by Bhavanani et al
that yogic breathing techniques like mukha bhastrika may be used as an effective means of
training to improve neuromuscular abilities in special children. (6)

CONCLUSION
The practice of pranayama helps improve awareness in children with special needs.
Through this self-directed consciousness, concentration and mental function are improved.
The entire body benefits from the techniques, as it gets rejuvenated, stamina improves,
muscles are tone and the blood flow increases. Meanwhile, the focused regulation of breath
calms the nervous system and reduces the stress level, which influences their quality of
sleep. Their mental stability also is improved, by the management of emotions through the
use of sound. Children are given an opportunity to sublimate and exteriorize their
suppressed and regressed emotions. (10)

Their self-acceptance and confidence gets enhanced too. With regular practice, they become
more comfortable using their body while their mind is perfectly at peace resulting in a
beautiful harmonized connection of body-mind-emotions. Children with special needs must
experience their mind and body without judgment and yoga is encouraging them to develop
tolerance and love toward themselves.

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REFERENCES

1. Tu HT, Cunningham PJ. Public coverage provides vital safety net for children with
special health care needs. Issue Brief Cent Stud Health Syst Change 2005; (98):1-7.
2. Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in collaboration with Vijay Human Services.
Teaching Yogasana to the Mentally Retarded. Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram
Publications, Chennai, 1983
3. Bhavanani AB. Yoga Chikitsa: The application of Yoga as a therapy. Pondicherry, India:
Dhivyananda Creations, 2013.
4. Telles S, Naveen KV. Yoga for rehabilitation: an overview. Indian J Med Sci 1997; 51:
123–127.
5. Uma K, Nagendra HR, Nagarathna R, Vaidehi S, Seethalakshmi R. The integrated
approach of yoga: a therapeutic tool for mentally retarded children: a one-year
controlled study. J Ment Defic Res 1989; 33: 415–421
6. Bhavanani AB, Ramanathan M and Harichandrakumar KT. Immediate effect of
mukhabhastrika (a bellows type pranayama) on reaction time in mentally challenged
adolescents. Indian J PhysiolPharmacol 2012; 56(2): 174–180
7. Telles S, Joseph C, Venkatesh S, Desiraju T. Alterations of auditory middle latency
evoked potentials during yogic consciously regulated breathing and alternative states of
the mind. Int J Psychophysiol 1993; 14: 189–198
8. Freeman D. Yoga for Children with Special Needs, from
https://yogainmyschool.com/pdf/SpecialNeedsManual2.pdf
9. Wikipedia contributors. (2019, April 28). Motor coordination. In Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia. Retrieved 03:43, May 26, 2019, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Motor_coordination&oldid=894515473
10. Ramanathan M. Applied Yoga: Application of yoga in various fields of human activity.
2nd ed. Puducherry, India: CYTER, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth;2018.

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