It is known that children with attention deficit disorder (ADD) have deficit in sustained attention. It is important to develop trainings for improving sustained attention in ADD children. It was shown that yoga exercises have positive effect on sustained attention in adults.

The gaol of this study was to reveal effect of yoga exercises on sustained attention in 7-8 years of age children with ADD. We compared the efficacy of two methods of treatment (yoga exercises vs. conventional motor exercises) in a randomized controlled pilot study.

18 children with ADD at the age of 7-8 years were included and randomly assigned to treatment conditions according to a 2×2 crossover design. Children from intervention group participated in 8 weeks of yoga exercises. To assess the sustained attention we used subtest from Luria’s child neuropsychological battery. This subtest is designed to assess visual sustained attention.. Effects of treatment were analyzed by means of an ANOVA for repeated measurements.

The ANOVA has revealed (p<.05) that for sustained attention subtest the yoga exercises were superior to the conventional motor training, with effect sizes in the medium-to-high range (0.39-0.77).

The findings from this pilot study suggest that yoga exercises have positive effect on sustained attention in 7-8 years of age children with ADD. However, it is necessary to do further research to reveal the impact of yoga exercises on the prevention and treatment of attention deficit disorder in children.

Prenatal maternal stress is an important phenomenon. Evidence on this topic suggests that women who experience high stress during pregnancy are more likely to deliver preterm infants.

The goal of this study was to evaluate the influence of Yoga exercises training on stress reduction during pregnancy.

In the current study we included 20 women who participated in the Yoga exercises training during pregnancy. The control group included 20 women who were in the reading control condition during pregnancy. Women were eligible to participate if they were experiencing elevated levels of perceived stress or pregnancy-specific anxiety (PSA), as indicated by responses to the Perceived Stress Scale and the PSA scale on a screening questionnaire. Women enrolled between 12 and 26 weeks gestation were randomly assigned to either the Yoga exercises training or to the reading control condition. Effects of training were analyzed by means of an ANOVA with repeated measurements.

ANOVA has revealed (p<.05) that women in the Yoga exercises training experienced larger decreases from pre- to postintervention in pregnancy-specific anxiety and pregnancy-related anxiety than participants in the reading control condition.

This pilot study suggests that Yoga exercises training during pregnancy can effectively reduce pregnancy-related anxiety. However, it is necessary to do further research on the impact of Yoga exercises on stress reduction during pregnancy.