Student-Reported Effects of High School Yoga Program on Student-Reported Effects of High School Yoga Program

Yoga is one of the six branches of classical Indian philosophy (Bower et al., 2005). References to yoga are made throughout the Vedas, which is an ancient Indian scripture among the oldest texts in existence (Witzel, 2003). This practice has been around for thousands of years and is commonly used to improve physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Over the last several decades yoga has been under empirical scrutiny as researchers strive to identify benefits and outcomes of yoga practice under various contexts. Specific areas have involved the effects of yoga on depression, cardiac conditions, addictions, anxiety, diabetes, pain disorders, and highrisk populations (Bower et al., 2005; Ross & Thomas, 2010; Venkataramana et al., 2008). A population of special interest is adolescents as they face developmental changes physically, socially, and cognitively (Sagone et al., 2020).