Harvard Medical School has researched and written extensively on yoga and state that yoga can increase Immune system by raising levels of disease fighting antioxidants and switch on Genes that promote health. It also reduce anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and even improves PTSD symptoms. Their studies show “people who do yoga use 43% fewer medical services” Incorporating a family yoga practice can be a strategy to improve everyone’s immune system.

Yoga can improve overall health as research shows eight in ten kids don’t get the recommended hour of physical activity a day and advise that parents need to exercise with their children to model the behaviour of an active lifestyle. Yoga can help increase the families physical activity daily total and therefore overall health.

Doing yoga as a family, not only models an active lifestyle but models mindfulness. It gives the parents a break from their feelings of stress and overwhelm at the same time teaching their children to practice relaxation. It means the whole family will have the same shared practice to decrease their anxiety and feelings of overwhelm.

For those families needing a guide to family yoga Yoga Inspiration for Families has just been released, it was written in COVID-19 and is a free ebook to help parents guide their children through carefully curated yoga poses. The sequence is designed to be a gentle moving meditation to deepen tranquillity and cultivate inner peace with every breath. There is also an 18 minute free class based on the book available at hereyoga.com.au/family-yoga/

Penelope Jane Jones, author, says her motivation for writing it came from her friends response to COVID-19.

“My Facebook feed was clogged with parents in overwhelm with the pandemic, working from home and home-schooling. I wanted them to have a resource that would build their own resilience but also connect with their children in a new way.”

During restrictions, Ms. Jones decided to actively support her friends, family and community by collaborating with mindfulness experts to create free resources to support families. The project is called Write With You Project and has currently six books available for free on Google Play with both Children’s non-fiction and fiction books available. Ms. Jones can be reached instagram.com/penelopejanejones/