In a community hall in Chingford, East London, a small group of teenagers are lying on mats on the floor. Covered in blankets and clutching teddy bears, they, to the uninformed eye, look as if they went for a kip at nap time in playgroup ten years ago and never quite got around to waking up. After all, teens don’t usually “do” teddy bears in group settings.

But they are not sleeping. They are in a state of deep relaxation, induced by the tranquil tones of Usha Chudasama, who is running stress-busting workshops for children and teenagers called The Healing Feeling 4 Kids. This particular workshop consists of five, three-hour sessions of various therapeutic techniques, based on the teachings of Louise Hay, the Heal Your Life self-help guru. Hay’s work focuses on the body-mind connection, linking physical ailments with emotional states, asserting that meditation, affirmations and visualisation exercises can lead to wellness and inner tranquillity.

By the end of the morning they are clearly blissed out. Hudisi, 15, sums up the feelgood factor: “My mum suggested I come here because I have a problem expressing my emotions. But I feel very relaxed now.”

Tools to deal with future stresses

While it is tempting to dismiss releasing feelings to the elements as New Age crankiness, if it works for teenagers, whose hormonally charged moods can lead to much family disharmony, why knock it? Indeed, The Healing Feeling is one of several workshops and lessons geared specifically to destressing overwrought children and teens. Others include Relax Kids, a class and home-based series of guided relaxation sessions for children, and YogaBugs, which runs classes based on yoga postures, breathing and meditations for children. Both cater for stressed-out children, though neither would say that is a unique selling point. Rather, they are giving children the tools to deal with future stresses, and showing them that there is more to downtime than slumping in front of the telly.

Barbara Herts, the chief executive of the young people’s mental health charity Young-Minds, says: “Today’s fast pace and often confusing world can have a real and lasting effect on the mental health and emotional wellbeing of children and young people. With increases in stressful events such as exam pressure, family breakdown and bullying, we are experiencing more triggers to stress and anxiety in young people.”

Chudasama, a special-needs teacher, worked through the Hay method to manage the symptoms of ME when she was bedridden in 2000. When she returned to work a few years later, she started to apply what she had learnt to children with behavioural problems. “The parents said that after the children learnt these techniques, they were less likely to fly off the handle. I decided to run a workshop for 12 to 15-year-olds because this group often feel that no one understands them, but I am trying to show them that the answer is within themselves.”

Affirmations and visualisations

In doing so, Chudasama has asked these kids to do some things that in another context they may find embarrassing. For example, during mirror work sessions the teens look at themselves in mirrors and say (silently) affirmations. “Yes, some thought that it was a bit weird, and in the beginning they might say the words ‘I am beautiful’ but think ‘No, I’m not, look at my spots!’ and then they have to explore where the thoughts come from,” she says.

Affirmations, in the form of illustrated cards, are part of the Relax Kids programme, which aims to “promote a child’s self-esteem by using their imagination through play”. Classes for children between the ages of 4 and 9 involve movement, breathing, affirmations and visualisations, and kids can use meditation CDs, books and affirmation cards at home as an adjunct to, or instead of, group sessions.

Marneta Viegas, the founder of Relax Kids, used to be a children’s entertainer and found that after 13 years of performing they were getting more hyped up and finding it harder to sit still. “Everything had to move faster, and increasingly the children could not focus on the shows,” she says.

Viegas developed Relax Kids partially in response to this, and created hybrid fairy stories/ relaxation exercises so that children could, for example, “be in Jack and The Beanstalkand float in the clouds”. She was wary that parents would think “Does my child really need this?” and that it would be seen as just another activity to schedule in. She says: “It’s about setting them up for when they are older, and it’s great for emotional literacy.” Though most of the feedback from children is positive, Viegas says that after one session one little boy said that he felt bored. “But I knew he wasn’t bored. He was in a space where there wasn’t anything happening.”

Fenella Lindsell, the founder of YogaBugs (for children aged 2½ to 7) and Yoga’dUp (for children between 8 and 12), says they help overstimulated kids, through yoga postures and meditations, “to connect to that quiet space inside you which we all have; you can’t relax and focus your mind until you relax your body”.

The younger children do a version of yoga postures and breathing exercises as the teacher coordinates the movements to an adventure story. The older children do a more grown-up version of yoga. Lindsell is keen to disavow people of the notion that yoga for kids is a yummy-mummy, middle-class thing. “Many of our classes are incorporated into the school day or after-school programmes. Teachers tell us that they are more focused and able to listen better.”

Jane O’Brien’s two children, Ciara, 9 and Lir, 8, have been doing YogaBugs for a couple of years. She says: “They are very chilled after a class and they are able to use what they’ve learnt in other situations. If Ciara has a hissy fit, she can calm herself quickly. And the belly breathing really helped Lir with nerves for his first drama assessment.”

For more information visit: www.healing-feeling.co.uk ; www.yogabugs.com ; www.relaxkids.com ; www.britishmeditationsociety.org

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