Yoga For Teens: Benefits, Poses & How To Engage Them

Why teens and yoga classes work, plus benefits of yoga for teens.

Also see how to engage teens in yoga, & best yoga poses for teens.

Yoga for young people methods for teaching yoga to teens, children, & yoga for teens online.

Yoga classes for teens: the short answer

Yoga for teens works best when it is active first and calm last: balance poses, standing poses and a few safe inversions to hold their attention, then a quiet lie-down at the end. Reviews of school yoga programs find it is safe and generally helpful for young people’s mood and focus, though most studies are small. Flametree Yoga Studio in Darwin has no regular teens class on the timetable at the moment, so contact us about a teen group, or about a young person joining a beginner class.

This article follows in short form:

What happened when Chris taught a Darwin group of 12 to 17 year olds.
Benefits of yoga for teens: what research has found, and its limits.
How to engage teens in yoga: the right poses in the right order.
Yoga poses for teens they enjoy, and why.
Teaching yoga to teens needs a well trained teacher.
How to book a teen group in Darwin or online.

Below, see my experiences of yoga classes for teens, or young people, & the benefits of yoga for teens. Plus, I cover how to engage teens in yoga, yoga poses for teens, yoga for teens training, teaching yoga to teens, and yoga for teens online. In addition, if you want “yoga for children near me”, then please check this out.

I discuss why and how it works, and the many benefits of living in a world where there is more yoga for teens, or yoga for young people, or yoga for children, or whatever is the term most appropriate for your situation.

In other words, what Flametree does, and how it does it, will be useful for all interested in yoga for young people of any mix of ages.

My yoga classes for teens adventure

Recently, I delivered some one-off yoga classes for teens to a group of 12 to 17 year old teens.

It was similar to what I’ve done elsewhere, over many years, including with children.

In this case, the young people were from a teens drop-in centre program during the school holidays.

A significant number of empathetic adults, with assistance of some important organisations in Darwin, were working with the teens during their vacation.

The teens were a typical cross section of modern Darwin society. So, some of the states of mind were what you might expect.

The group also included teens of both genders.

Yoga for children or teens: use plenty of balance poses

Yoga for children or teen should include balancing poses. They’re usually better than adults at doing them. Plus, the focus such poses require is part of why the right sequence of yoga poses will calm teenagers.

The power of mind body practises to calm

As the two yoga classes progressed, what most surprised the adults watching on, was how the young people calmed down.

By the end of the session, the teens were quiet and laid out in the normal, end of yoga relaxation session, with their eyes closed.

With the sequence of yoga poses that I taught, I noticed them steadily calming down, and getting more focussed, as the session progressed.

That is what I planned, and also what I know is the power of quality yoga mind body practices.

In addition to the calming power of yoga, there were also some other mind body challenges that I noticed.

These challenges are also useful for adults to consider in relation to themselves.

But, before I outline more about my yoga classes for teens adventure, here are quick answers to a couple of regular issues that often come up about teens and yoga.

Another yoga for children or teens favourite

Students in my most recent class were gutsy about attempting this Warrior 3 pose, and most did a good job of balancing. It’s benefits include focus, courage, balance, and strength.

Benefits of yoga for teens?

The benefits of yoga for teens include building lean strength, balance, & flexibility via isometric holding, & isotonic movement. In our experience, it also calms minds, which helps focus and emotional regulation (managing strong feelings).

What research has found so far: a 2022 review of 21 randomised trials in school-aged children, in Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, called the evidence for yoga and children’s mental health encouraging, while noting small samples and thin descriptions of the programs (Khunti and colleagues, doi 10.1177/13591045221136016). A 2026 review of 11 studies on body image found small, mixed benefits from yoga on its own, and more consistent ones when yoga was paired with group discussion (Schneider and colleagues, Body Image, doi 10.1016/j.bodyim.2026.102093). So yoga is a promising, low-risk support for teens, not a treatment on its own.

The benefits of yoga for teens also include any of the many powerful outcomes that adults get from yoga.

I, (Christine), a certified Senior Yoga Teacher and Yoga Therapist, know this because I and Flametree Yoga Studio have taught plenty of yoga classes for teens.

The studies above are the best current summary of the research.

By the way, these outcomes are not especially different even for older age groups, including adults. In other words, yoga works in similar ways, for all age groups.

The many options for yoga poses for teens

Young people also will have a go at advanced poses, like this arm balance, if they’re shown how, and given encouragement. Obviously, yoga pose sequences also need to be doable, and within the capacity of the group. Young people will be courageous about attempting poses. When shown how, they enjoy the challenge.

How to engage teens in yoga?

How to engage teens in yoga requires quality, traditional yoga poses that interest teens, taught in a relatively dynamic way. So, it needs the right poses, in the right order. Plus, calm teens down by sequentially moving from more active, exciting, or focusing poses, to quieter poses.

Balancing poses, and inversions like handstands, will also be especially liked, providing they’re taught at a suitable level, to the right group. For instance, some female teenagers may not like handstands.

To do such yoga poses, you’ll need a room with walls. Then, the walls can also be used as supports, as you see in one of the pictures with this post.

Plus, if you want the calmest outcomes, then a peaceful, quiet room will always be the best location.

What can be done will also depend on the gender mix of the teens in the class, their fitness (or otherwise), and their ages.

Below, I say much more about how to engage teens in yoga. It’s relevant whether you’re looking for yoga for children, yoga for teens online, or whatever.

In yoga for children or teens, backbends are also favourites

Extreme backbends are also popular with young people, & the teenage women are sometimes very good at them. They also enjoy them. The poses taught need to be ramped up, or wound back, depending on what’s engaging for those in the class. So, the teacher needs to adjust the poses taught, and their order, sometimes quite rapidly, depending on what’s happening in the class, minute by minute.

Mind body challenges in yoga classes for teens

In any class of yoga for children, or yoga for teens, you’ll obviously see a range of abilities.

People will also be reluctant in some cases, because they have probably never done yoga before.

When teaching yoga for teens, or yoga for teens online, or yoga for children, the mind body challenges may include these:

States of mind before the yoga class could be scattered, dismissive, unfocussed, and disinterested.
Some will have low flexibility, and insufficient muscular strength.
Sometimes, their muscles will not attach sufficiently (via tendons etc), to their bones.
Older male teenagers are also of course dealing with the challenges of rapid growth, and these can hamper flexibility.
Some young people are still exceedingly flexible, but some may not yet have the strength to use the flexibility.
Others will have a good mix of flexibility and moderate strength.
Many have quite good balance (and are better at it than adults). They will also be very interested in further developing these types of yoga poses.

When teaching yoga to teens, or children, start with standing poses

teen training in standing poses, and more

Standing poses, like this, develop flexibility, and strength. Plus, the focus that is required is part of calming the mind. They also develop better focus, and thereby help mental performance.

A world designed for what you may not want

Clearly, any such conditions arise from the mix of activities, or lack of activities, that are also typical of our adult world.

For instance, most of the activities for adults or children, are highly focused on the sympathetic (flight or fight) nervous system.

Such activities don’t have enough balance with the so-called parasympathetic (rest, relax, and calming) side of the nervous system.

These 2 parts of the human nervous system are illustrated in this diagram of your nervous system.

These parts of your nervous system work automatically, and yoga works automatically through them, if the right mix of mind body practices are done.

So, it’s not hard to see why children, young people, and adults can sometimes be unfocussed, hyper active, overly aggressive, and more.

I mean that they’ve been predominantly doing sympathetic nervous system activities. These include most conventional, competitive sports.

In other words, we’ve designed a world of activity (and inactivity), that makes it almost impossible for people to sufficiently relax, get enough sleep, calm down, or maximise performance.

If you have walls, include handstand when teaching yoga to teens

In yoga for children, or teens, they love handstands. Plus, they have much less fear about them, than so adults. Walls help them get started, and they can be taught in sequential steps. It starts with building arm strength, so as to lift your whole weight.

Some yoga classes for teens don’t work well

There are many different styles of yoga. Some of them are mostly aerobic, with less focus on traditional yoga postures (and the power of such poses).

As a result, some of those yoga styles may not be as useful in how to engage teens in yoga.

Such aerobic activity has the same lack of sufficient balance between the flight and fight part of the nervous system, and the rest and calming side of the nervous system.

At the same time, such mind body activities may not sufficiently develop strength, flexibility, or balance.

They also fail to use the power of traditional yoga poses like inversions, longer holding of poses (for isometric outcomes), or quietening the very active “monkey mind” that we all have.

With the exception of a very few meditative programs for younger people, there’s also no use made of the immense power of traditional meditation techniques.

Of course, without first using decent quality yoga, its almost impossible to first get the mind quiet enough for the use of meditative techniques.

The benefits of yoga for teens are extended when you have good yoga props

props for how to engage teens young people & children in yoga

Good yoga props, including barrels are part of how to engage teens in yoga. Some mobs can be transported, but many more are at our main teaching locations.

Calming & activity via quality yoga, & less sport

In short, if you want good mind body outcomes for young people, then search out quality yoga that definitely delivers what you may be after.

For instance, some styles may not have enough focus on breathing and relaxation techniques.

But, teens need both activity and calming, because they’re living in the same challenging world that adults are.

If we can give that to teens, it puts them in a good place for their adult lives.

In this regard, yoga offers benefits that are so different from what you get from regular sport.

It’s possible to get your body strong and healthy, but also get calm in the process. That includes the ability to deal with upsets.

However, if you combine quality yoga with sport, you will also get better outcomes in both sports and life. For instance, in another post, we outlined how Australian cricket legend, Justin Langer, successfully used Iyengar mind body yoga.

Developing balance, abs, & improving hamstrings, in yoga for young people

Abdominal poses like this work in different ways for teen yoga

Boat pose is a good example of a pose for abdominal muscles that works via isometric holding, rather than repeated contractions. So, yoga works for long, lean, and strong muscles… but does so differently than does conventional exercise.

What we all take into adulthood

I mention these observations because that’s clearly what many people take into their 20s, 30s, and beyond.

Of course, I do realise that there is more mind body practices in schools then there was when I was a child. (There were none!).

So, in my own case, even though I was very good at conventional sport at school, I was horribly stiff by 40, and earlier.

For adults, and many young people, things still have not changed sufficiently.

In Flametree classes, for instance, I see new beginners working to overcome challenges like a lack of co-ordination, stiffness, poor balance, minimal strength, and scattered minds.

Around Darwin, and beyond, I also notice exactly where adulthood leads for many.

So, yoga has the potential to deal with conditions that are aspects of modern life, such as:

poor postures that are unhealthy for mind and body
shrunken lung capacity from rounding the shoulders
shuffling walks that bespeak inflexibility and poor strength
unhealthy weight
inflammation from some mix of what they consume.

So, I also note that good quality, de-stressing yoga will also help manage weight.

The good news is that even within weeks of starting some regular, beginner level yoga classes, adults with any of these mixes of health challenges, make rapid improvements.

If you’re remote, yoga for teens online could be a good option for you

Updog yoga pose is also a good option for the dynamic, moving yoga sequences that will engage teens in yoga classes. In yoga for children, you’ll notice they’re even more flexible than teens.

Beyond the comprehension of our world

Of course, these young people in the yoga classes for teens, were also gob smacked that 2 older people, like Stuart and I, were able to demonstrate the poses we included in the teen yoga class.

Several times, as the classes progressed, there were audible gasps from the class.

I tell you this not in order to boast, but simply to point out that things are missing from the mix of activities we mostly offer younger people, and others.

There’s nothing special about the yogic skills of Stuart or myself.

They arise simply from regular practise of the same yoga poses for teens that we teach in such programs, or any other regular classes.

Again, I want to note that whenever we did demonstrate poses that seemed surprising, or maybe undoable, these young people often then rose to the challenge of them.

For many reasons, stiffness happens, even when you’re young. But, with practice, such stiffness can be overcome.

With practise and support, all sorts of things are possible.

It’s important that young people be encouraged in these directions. That’s how anyone grows.

Yoga for teens online, or anywhere involves the same posture mix

Any back bend yoga pose. such as this pose, will lift spirits and energy. So they’re excellent yoga poses for teens, and yoga for children, and should be included.

Emotional regulation via teens classes

There is often too little appreciation of the power of the right yoga classes for teens, or other mind body activities, to calm and focus people.

In addition, there’s insufficient understanding that these mind body practices can support emotional regulation, and the calm, sattvic (clear and steady) state of mind that yoga teaching aims for.

In some slides, I’ve outlined what I mean by a calm, sattvic mind, making more use of your vagus nerve to deliver so-called vagal tone.

Yoga, done the right way, will also take you there.

Plus, in another post, I’ve explained how yoga for anger works.

Instead, we live in a world where road rage, partner violence, and “flying off the handle”, and worse, are all far too common.

At the same time, there is little knowledge of other alternatives.

Or, worse still, the mind body alternatives that can deliver different outcomes are dismissed.

The dismissal flow from views that don’t allow people to look at the evidence of how well they work, or to try them out in an experiential way.

How to engage teens in yoga, including even headstand.

yoga for children headstand option at Palmerston NT by Flametree

Headstand delivers immense calming and focus. It can be learnt by almost anyone, providing its correctly taught in a series of preparatory steps, ideally with the right mix of yoga props. Teens also love headstand. But, as discussed, some may initially think it’s undoable.

Yoga for young people, & yourself

So, for those of you who know of these powers of mind body practices, please continue to put them to work for yourself first.

Then, as appropriate, please be an ambassador for how they can contribute more to a better world around us, including for young people.

Please also get in touch if you want to discuss options for yoga classes for teens, or the benefits of yoga for teens.

We’re also happy to outline more about how to engage teens in yoga, the yoga poses for teens we use, Flametree’s yoga for teens training, teaching yoga to teens, or yoga for teens online.

Yoga for teens training

One last word of caution. Yoga for teens training can be exactly what this post has been about so far.

But it can also mean yoga for teens training so as to train teachers of yoga for children, or yoga for teens, or even adults.

In this regard, Flametree was once asked by an organisation to teach quickly teach them how to run classes, so they could do it themselves.

There’s nothing wrong with this aspiration to do yoga for teens training of teachers, or others.

However, people need be aware that quality yoga teaching takes years to learn. Certified Iyengar teachers train for a minimum of 3 years, after years of their own practice.

Then, you steadily get better and better at teaching it, and doing it, depending on your application, and desired seniority.

In other words, just like any other profession, mastery requires extensive study, and continual practice.

Plus, as usual, the outcomes that an organisation gets from using yoga, depends on the quality of the teachers you’re using.

If you’re interested in yoga for teens training for yourself, or for others maybe start by scanning the Flametree’s normal yoga training for teachers of yoga.

Calming via yoga for teens classes & training

teacher for Yoga Classes For Teens so as to deliver Benefits

Teens love balancing poses like tree pose, and are relatively good at them. As for anyone, benefits of yoga for teens, or yoga for children, include better focus and performance. So, this type of pose is useful because it requires immense focus. If you’re looking for teaching yoga to teens, including yoga for teens online, or other yoga for teens training, please contact us.

Experiential yoga for teens training, including for adults

Teaching yoga to teens, including yoga for teens online, or other yoga for teens training, are all a part of what Flametree can deliver. What Flametree does, and how it does it, will be useful for all interested in yoga for young people of any mix of ages.

In addition, there are a wide range of regular adult yoga classes. For instance, check out our beginner timetable, and non-beginner timetable.

Remember, yoga is experiential. So, it’s impacts are only understood when you experience them.

Plus, notwithstanding what anyone says, you’ll only be sure of what yoga can deliver, when you experience good quality, traditional yoga for yourself.

In other words, you’ll know it when you feel it.

The same is true for teens. In most cases, they’ll come to appreciate the wonderful benefits of yoga for teens, when and if they’re given the opportunity to experience what good quality yoga can deliver for them.

Plus, yoga for teens online is possible, but contact us about options.

Good quality teaching of yoga poses for teens is accessible for all

Half angle yoga for children pose at Palmerston Darwin NT

Remember, good yoga teaching starts with simple yoga poses, like this half angle yoga pose, that all can do. Good yoga teaching proceeds by a series of well defined levels. It is anything but “one size fits all”. As for adults, how to engage teens in yoga, involves starting with the basics. Even easy poses will still deliver many of the benefits of yoga for teens.

FREE first class, & HALF price deals

If you’re new to Flametree, your first class is free: in Darwin if you have lived in the NT for three months, or online from anywhere.

That class will of course just give you a tiny taste, and help break down any initial barriers to getting started.

However, in my own case, for instance, I slept better from my very first class.

But, it may also take many classes before you notice the many very helpful outcomes of good quality yoga.

You can also just come along to a regular Flametree class and pay casually at the studio.

Then, if you want, you can get great value via the beginner HALF price 10 class pack, or the pay-by-the-week program.

When you buy the HALF price ten class pack via ecommerce, you also get 2 FREE classes with each of your first 2 ten class packs.

You can also buy the casual classes, or ten class pack, online, or at the studio (by cash or EFTPOS).

To buy via ecommerce, just click on the orange links below.

But, it you want to know more about teaching yoga to teens, or yoga for children, including yoga for teens online, or other yoga for teens training, then please contact us.

Adult Yoga Class Deals

Casual beginner yoga class

Newcomer & lapsed: 10 half price beginner classes plus 2 free, $59.50

Pay-by-the-week for unlimited beginner classes

Yoga for teens: common questions

Is yoga good for teenagers?

Yes, for most teens. Reviews of school yoga programs find it safe and generally helpful for mood, stress and focus, though most studies are small. In our experience teens respond best to active, challenging poses first and a quiet rest at the end.

What are the benefits of yoga for teens?

Strength, balance and flexibility from holding poses, plus a calmer mind and better focus. Research on school programs points to benefits for mood and stress, and yoga paired with group discussion has helped body image. Benefits build with regular practice.

How do you get teenagers interested in yoga?

Start with poses that feel like a challenge: balances such as Tree and Warrior 3, handstand at a wall, and backbends. Keep it moving, then finish with slower poses and a lie-down. Teens engage when they can see themselves getting better at something.

What yoga poses are good for teens?

Tree pose, Warrior poses, Triangle, Downward Dog, Boat pose for the abdominals, supported backbends, and handstand or headstand preparations at a wall once basics are sound. Finish with a forward bend and Savasana (lying relaxation).

What age can children start yoga?

Children can start simple, playful poses young, and by the early teens most can follow a structured class. What matters more than age is a teacher who adjusts the poses to the group and keeps it safe, especially with inversions.

Can teenagers do yoga online?

Yes. Online classes work well for teens in remote areas or with busy schedules, as long as the teacher can see them and there is space and a wall to use. Contact Flametree to ask about online options for young people.

What training do you need to teach yoga to teens?

A solid general yoga teaching qualification comes first, then experience with young people. Certified Iyengar teachers train for a minimum of three years after years of their own practice, which is a good base for adjusting poses to any age.

Is there yoga for teens in Darwin?

Flametree Yoga Studio has taught teen groups in Darwin. There is no regular teens class on the timetable at the moment, so contact us about a group, or about a young person joining a beginner class.

To ask about a teen group or a young person starting classes, contact Flametree. For adults:

Yoga classes for adults at Flametree, in Darwin or online

New to Flametree? Your first class is free. In Darwin, just come along to the studio. Online, click the class time you want and we email you the link to join (get your link to join here). See the beginner timetable.
Keep going at half price. The beginner deal is 10 classes at half price plus 2 more free, $59.50 in total, in the studio, online or both. No discount code, and a 14-day money-back guarantee. For newcomers and anyone away three months or more.
Already practising yoga? The non-beginner half price 10 pass with 2 free is $104.50, no code needed. See the non-beginner timetable.

General information only. Sources: Khunti K et al 2022, Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry; Schneider J et al 2026, Body Image. Flametree Yoga Studio, Darwin and live online.