UCLA study ties breathing program to better outcomes for traumatized teen girls

A UCLA-led study found that a school program pairing SKY Breathing with social-emotional learning improved social connectedness most for teenage girls with the highest childhood trauma histories. The findings add early evidence that low-cost, school-based mental health tools may help reach students most at risk and least likely to benefit from traditional interventions.

Why it matters: - The study suggests school-based breathing and social-emotional learning programs can help students with the highest childhood trauma histories, a group that often sees the least benefit from mental health interventions. - Researchers say stronger social connectedness may help reduce risks tied to loneliness and isolation, including depression, anxiety, substance misuse and academic failure. - The results may matter for districts looking for low-cost, scalable student wellbeing programs, especially as mental health access disparities persist for Hispanic communities.

What happened: - Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles evaluated SKY Schools, a program from the International Association for Human Values that combines SKY Breathing with a social-emotional learning curriculum. - The findings were published in the Journal of Research on Adolescence. - The study randomly assigned two Southern California high schools, with 174 teenage girls total, to receive the program immediately or after a wait-list period. - More than 93% of the students were Hispanic. - The two groups started at similar levels of childhood adversity and social connectedness.

The details: - Girls in the intervention group who reported four or more adverse childhood experiences posted a 7% increase in social connectedness. - That gain was significantly larger than the change seen in lower-adversity peers in the same school and students at the wait-list school. - SKY Breathing, also called Sudarshan Kriya, uses specific rhythms of breath to help regulate the body’s stress response. - SKY Schools combines breathing work with movement, games, and training in leadership and conflict management. - The program is part of a broader social-emotional learning approach used in schools nationwide. - SKY Schools has reached more than 173,000 students, teachers and parents across 265 U.S. schools since it began 17 years ago. - Peer-reviewed research has linked the program to reduced impulsivity, improved self-esteem, better anger coping, stronger identity formation and less distractibility and self-reported mental health days. - Dara Ghahremani, senior author and research professor at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, said the girls who needed help most benefited most. - Ghahremani said a simple, scalable approach combining social-emotional skills training with breathing techniques can help students feel more connected and more able to regulate stress. - Elan Gepner-Dales, executive director at SKY Schools, said the study shows breath-based nervous-system regulation can reach young people school mental health programs often miss.

Between the lines: - The study is not just about breathing exercises. It points to a combined model of self-regulation and social-emotional learning, which may be more effective for students facing trauma than approaches focused only on talk-based support. - The strongest response among the highest-adversity girls suggests school interventions may need to be designed for trauma exposure, not just general student wellbeing. - Because the sample was small and limited to two Southern California schools, the findings read as early evidence rather than a final answer.

What's next: - School districts may look to the study as they decide whether to adopt or expand trauma-informed, breath-based wellbeing programs. - Further research will likely need to test whether the same results hold across larger, more diverse student populations and different school settings. - IAHV and the Art of Living Foundation say SKY Schools remains one of several education initiatives under their umbrella, alongside SKY Campus Happiness and free schools for underserved communities. - The organizations say they operate in 182 countries and have reached more than a billion people across health, education, disaster relief, prison rehabilitation, environmental restoration and peacebuilding.

The bottom line: - UCLA’s findings add momentum to the idea that low-cost breathing and social-emotional programs can improve mental health-related outcomes for traumatized teen girls, especially those schools often miss.