Yoga in Academia: Assessing Physiological, Emotional, and Cognitive Performance
Mamani Mondal Ghosh Abstract In modern educational settings, an era of unprecedented stress, anxiety and digital overstimulation for students, holistic wellness paradigms are more frequently being added to traditional pedagogical models. This paper investigates the intentional incorporation of yoga, including physical postures (asanas), controlled breathing (pranayama), and organised meditation (dhyana), into formal academic curricula across K-12 school systems, higher education, and intensive professional graduate tracks. Drawing on contemporary neurological, physiological and psychological research, we explore how school-based yoga interventions modulate the sympathetic-vagal balance, systematically down-regulating the “fight-or-flight” response while optimising prefrontal cortex functioning. Such evidence suggests that the infusion of yoga into daily instructional schedules directly improves students’ cognitive performance, including attentional control, working memory, and response inhibition. This is associated with significant improvements in cumulative grade point averages (GPAs). Furthermore, this paper also emphasises the role of yoga in facilitating psychosocial resilience, emotional regulation, and adaptive coping skills, thereby reducing classroom disruptions and Read More …