Teen girls facing the most adversity showed the biggest gains in social connection after breathwork course
School-based mental health programs face a persistent problem: The students who need help most often benefit least. A new UCLA study found the reverse. Among teenage girls in a program combining structured breathing techniques with social-emotional learning, those who had experienced the highest levels of childhood trauma showed the largest gains in social connectedness, according to findings…
A UCLA study published in the Journal of Research on Adolescence reveals that teenage girls who have experienced significant childhood trauma show greater improvements in social connectedness after participating in a breathwork course. The trial randomly assigned two Southern California high schools to receive the SKY Schools program, which combines social-emotional learning with Sudarshan Kriya Yoga, a breathing technique designed to regulate stress responses.
Among the 174 female participants, those who had endured four or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) saw a 7% increase in social connectedness. This improvement was significantly larger compared to girls in the low-ACE intervention group or those in the high-ACE and low-ACE waiting-list groups. The study's senior author, Dara Ghahremani, emphasizes that the findings suggest a simple, scalable approach that can help girls who have already faced substantial adversity feel more connected and develop a greater sense of belonging.
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