Kids respond to classroom yoga
Just 12 months on from a very dark time in her life, Sara Warnock is using yoga to aid her recovery, run a business and help improve children’s mental health.
The Upper Hutt yoga instructor says she is now in a much better frame of mind.
In the space of a few weeks she had a ‘‘mental breakdown’’ and gave up her job as a school teacher. Her problems were compounded by the death of her grandmother and being forced out of her flat after the November earthquake.
Warnock pulled herself out of that black time and entered the Ministry of Social Development’s Be Your Own Boss programme early this year.
After sitting a short business course, and with support and a small grant from MSD, she opened yoga studio Seedling Yoga in March. Since then she has been the driving force behind the ‘‘Yoga in Schools’’ initiative which has been developed in partnership with the Hutt City Council.
A pilot programme was started at Avalon Intermediate with the intention of giving children the tools to help look after their own mental, physical and emotional wellbeing using yoga, breathing and mindfulness.
‘‘It’s been awesome. The teachers and the children have really responded to it,’’ she said.
‘‘At the start we were fully preparing to face negative feedback but that hasn’t happened.’’
She taught about 150 children across five classes for a term each and noticed many changes.