Abstract
Literature has shown that yoga can calm, energize, and focus the body and mind. Additionally, combining the emotional and physical parts of our being, and balance our bodies (Bennett, 2002). Finding that internal balance and calm is one of the reasons elementary public schools are beginning to incorporate these ancient practices in their schools. Ideally, calmer students will lead to less disturbances and more learning. This experimental study will try to identify if general yoga benefits found in previous research produces the same benefits in an elementary public school setting. Instead of evaluating all the benefits of yoga, this study focuses on evaluating yoga’s impact on classroom behavioral control, which is a constant concern in all of our public schools. The purpose of the study was to administer pre-yoga and post-yoga student behavior surveys to the teachers of 5th grade public school students. The objective was to identify if the teachers’ perceptions of student behavior changed after the implementation of an eight-week yoga treatment. Results suggest that physical aggression is an area of behavior that could be improved by implementing a yoga program. Further research in this area is suggested to validate these findings.