Interventions with dance, yoga, and mindfulness to improve mental health among children and adolescents

Interventions with dance, yoga, and mindfulness to improve mental health among children and adolescents

The increasing mental health problems among young people are currently among the most serious health challenges globally. Finding early interventions to break this trend is needed. To investigate the effect of three different non-pharmacological interventions on mental health symptoms in children and adolescents. Material and methods: “The Dance Project” was a randomized controlled study to investigate the effect of an 8- month dance intervention on daytime tiredness and alertness among adolescent girls with internalizing problems. The “Just In TIME project” was a randomized controlled study to investigate the effects of an 8-month- long dance and yoga intervention on saliva cortisol and self-reported stress levels among girls with functional abdominal pain disorders. “The mindfulness project” was a controlled school study, where mindfulness was provided daily for 10 weeks to estimate the effect on depression and anxiety symptoms immediately after intervention and at one-year follow-up in children and adolescents aged 6-16 years. The dance project resulted in decreased daytime tiredness in the intervention group compared to the control group. The “Just in TIME” intervention resulted in improved cortisol levels during the intervention, compared to controls, but no effects were seen at the end of the study. No overall mindfulness-induced differences in depression and anxiety symptoms in school children, after the intervention or after one year were detected. However, symptom-improvement was observed in the subgroup that received teacher-led mindfulness compared to audio file led after the intervention. This effect did not remain after one year. Positive outcomes were mainly observed in dance and yoga interventions. Some effects were seen immediately after the mindfulness intervention, but they did not remain after one year. The thesis emphasizes the importance of evaluating early interventions for young people, to prevent or reduce mental health problems. More research is needed to find evidence-based methods that hold the potential to reach a large number of individuals at a low cost to promote mental health.