More Americans are turning to forms of complementary medicine such as yoga, meditation and chiropractors, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

Anxiety disorders are the most common adolescent mental health conditions in the United States, with approximately one-third (31.9%) of 13- to 18-year-old children suffering from clinical anxiety. In addition, 8.3% of adolescents with anxiety disorders experience severe impairment in their daily functioning. Females are more commonly affected than males, with lifetime prevalence rates of 38% and 26%, respectively.

Increased interest in complementary therapies, high rates of childhood anxiety, the controversy surrounding SSRI use in adolescents, and the climbing costs of mental health care point to the need for mind and body therapeutic approaches to anxiety management. Despite the many barriers to mind and body practices, current research focusing on biofeedback, mindfulness, yoga, and hypnosisdemonstrates that these methods show promise to reduce anxiety among adolescent populations.

Meet Maddie, OG Yoga’s youngest advocate for healthy living, exercise, and mindfulness for children. Learn more about Maddie’s story in this blog.

I came to see yoga as a vehicle for transformation through reclaiming an intimate, healthy relationship with self. Upon reflection, it seemed like a natural evolution to offer these tools to inmates prior to release from prison in anticipation of the challenges of reintegration, and the potential for recidivism.

“The current human disconnection from the natural world starts with our disconnection from our own bodies, which we as a culture inherited – to a degree that most of us generally don’t quite acknowledge the extent of our inability to feel our own bodies.”
– Simon Thakur

What if I started a non-profit project, with the mission to deliver trauma informed mindfulness based yoga through partnerships with non-profit organizations and correctional facilities serving marginalized individuals to support healing, resilience, self-development and positive social change?

People who do hatha yoga report improved balance, but only now has yoga’s impact on falls received rigorous study.

Now, University of Wisconsin–Madison professor of family medicine Irene Hamrick reports that the number of falls in older adults dropped 48 percent in the six months after yoga classes began, compared to the six months previous.

...Winfrey said, "If you don't fix the hole in the soul, the thing that is where the wounds started, you're working at the wrong thing."

A long-haul carrier has introduced a series of yoga and meditation videos for use before, during and after a flight for increased passenger wellbeing.

Aiming to reach out to the most marginalized members of the San Diego community, OG Yoga has a spot for anyone who wants to be transformed by the power of yoga. OG Yoga promotes self-reliance and social change with the help of their certified yoga instructors who specialize in assisting at-risk locals overcoming challenges. Geared towards combating poverty, homelessness, addiction and more, OG Yoga is a renowned agent of change that focuses on the healing process necessary for participants to live a full and productive life.

It is now well-known that youth who come into contact with the juvenile justice system have high rates of mental health and substance abuse conditions — rates that far exceed those of the general youth population.