yoga breathing to reduce stress

Counihan, Beth. “Using Hatha Yoga Breathing Assignments: An Essai” Teaching with Joy: Educational Practices for the Twenty-First Century. New York: Rowman & Littlefielf Publishers, Inc. 2007, pp.25-28.

Summary:

In this article, Beth Counihan explains how yoga methods can help reduce stress before students begin an essay. She expresses that students almost always feel some sort of anxiety before starting a written piece. In order to lessen this stress and anxiety, she has started having her students do a yoga meditation to clear their minds and feel centered before they being writing. She even takes you through the exact steps she uses before students begin writing an essay to allow you to feel the calmness she tries to create before an essai begins. Though this is a great introduction as to why meditation can't hurt and one way a teacher could employ it, no factual evidence is given. She even expresses that she has been hesitant in using it herself. She does not cite any specific studies or research to explain why she started using meditation or how effective it has been in her college course. In short, it is just an overview of how she is starting to use yoga breathing in the college level courses she teaches.

Quotes:

-“I am well aware that it can take years of work to achieve fluency in Standard Written American English, but since all aspects of writing bring anxiety to students anyway, Hatha yogaasanas work to reduce that stress.” (26)

-“In the past few semesters, I have introduced various asanas as talk in the class always comes back to writing fears and anxieties.” (26)