The experiences of 18-year-old Arijit Das from Siliguri and Vaishnavi Gowda highlight how childhood adversity, social isolation, bullying and family instability can affect teenagers’ emotional wellbeing, academic performance and relationships. Practices such as breathing exercises and meditation, introduced through the Art of Living’s Intuition Process and Sudarshan Kriya, helped both develop greater focus, stability and confidence.
A study by researchers at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, involving 174 adolescent girls aged 14 to 18, found that social connectedness scores increased by about 7% after eight weeks among participants who reported four or more adverse childhood experiences. Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has advocated breathing exercises, meditation and pranayama as practical tools for young people to manage emotional challenges.
While these practices cannot erase trauma or replace professional mental health care, the findings suggest that structured breathing exercises combined with social-emotional learning may help adolescents feel more connected to others.
Arijit’s Journey To Recovery
For Arijit Das, even being around people had become exhausting. The Siliguri teenager had grown increasingly withdrawn, insecure and angry, spent long hours on screens and struggled with the emotional effects of constant body-shaming. The COVID-19 lockdown years deepened his isolation, his ability to concentrate deteriorated, and his studies suffered.
There were also moments when his father, Dr Abhijit Das, heard thoughts from his son that no parent wants to hear. Concerned about his son’s wellbeing, Dr Das enrolled him in the Art of Living’s Intuition Process, a programme designed for young children that uses games, meditation and awareness-based exercises to help them become more centred and intuitive.
Arijit was also introduced to Sudarshan Kriya, a breathing technique cognised by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar that is described as helping remove stress from each cell in the body, calm the mind and allow one to settle in their being. The intention was not simply to improve Arijit’s grades, but to give him tools to manage the emotional turbulence he was struggling to articulate.
The change was gradual but noticeable. His teachers began noticing that he was more settled and able to focus. He started studying again, became more receptive and eventually scored 90%. Reflecting on the change, his father said, “I work in medicine, and I can say this, medicine alone cannot do what meditation did for my son. These practices gave me my child back.”
Understanding Adolescent Distress
Arijit’s experience raises a larger question for parents and schools: when a difficult childhood, prolonged stress or social isolation begins to alter how a teenager relates to the world, can practices that work with the breath and attention help them reconnect? Adolescence is already a period of enormous psychological and social change.
Friendships become central, peer approval can feel consequential, academic expectations intensify, and young people begin negotiating who they are and where they belong. For those carrying the effects of abuse, neglect, family conflict, bullying, loss or other adverse childhood experiences, these ordinary pressures can become considerably harder to navigate.
The consequences are not always visible. A teenager may become angry rather than sad, retreat into a phone rather than ask for help, or appear indifferent when they are actually overwhelmed. Social withdrawal can become both a symptom and a coping mechanism: the less connected a young person feels, the more difficult it can become to reach out and rebuild relationships.
Research On Breathwork
An emerging body of research on breathwork and adolescent wellbeing offers further insight. Researchers at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior examined 174 adolescent girls aged 14 to 18 at two high schools in Southern California. The intervention, called SKY Schools, combined social-emotional learning with Sudarshan Kriya. The researchers were particularly interested in adolescents who had experienced significant adversity.
Among participants who reported four or more adverse childhood experiences, social connectedness was lower at the beginning of the study. After eight weeks, their social connectedness scores had increased by about 7% from baseline. The researchers considered the improvement notable because adolescents with higher levels of adversity are often among those who benefit least from conventional school-based interventions.
The findings do not suggest that breathing exercises can erase trauma or replace professional mental health care. However, they indicate that a school-based programme combining social-emotional learning with a structured breathing practice may help adolescents carrying significant adversity feel more connected to others.
Gurudev’s Approach To Wellbeing
These findings have particular relevance to the work Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has been doing with children and young people for four and a half decades. “The breath is the link between the body and the mind,” Gurudev has said. His approach rests on the understanding that the breath is closely connected with emotional and mental states, and that consciously working with it can help create greater steadiness.
For Gurudev, the issue goes beyond teaching children how to relax. He has repeatedly spoken about the need to give young people practical tools to handle their minds and emotions before distress becomes a crisis. “Our youth are suffering from two extremes- they are either getting depressed on the one hand or get agitated and aggressive on the other,” he has said, highlighting the need to equip young people with inner stability rather than simply asking them to cope with mounting external pressures.
A teenager struggling with emotional overload does not necessarily need another lecture about resilience. They need an experience of resilience, something they can practise when anger rises, anxiety takes over or the mind begins spiralling. This is why Gurudev has emphasised simple, daily practices for young people, including breathing exercises, meditation and pranayama.
The idea is to make emotional regulation something that can be practised, much like physical fitness, rather than something young people are expected to acquire only after encountering serious difficulty. This also explains the growing interest in bringing such practices into schools. In an education system where counsellors and mental health professionals cannot always reach every child who needs support, a practice that can be taught collectively offers a potential first layer of emotional education.
Vaishnavi’s Childhood Struggles
Vaishnavi Gowda’s story illustrates what this can look like outside a research setting. She was nine when her parents separated. “My mom was someone I had spent nine years with. And abruptly, I had to leave her. Suddenly, my whole family broke down, and I had to stay with my dad,” she recalls.
Her childhood became marked by instability. She moved repeatedly between homes and cities, sometimes living in villages and sometimes in different parts of Mumbai. The constant movement compounded her sense that nothing around her was permanent. By her own account, she struggled academically and socially.
She describes herself as the girl who sat at the back of the class and was considered one of the weakest students. She also faced comments about her dark skin as a child.
From Struggle To Confidence
Vaishnavi’s trajectory changed after she was introduced to the Art of Living’s Intuition Process and meditation. What she remembers most is the growing sense of stability within herself. “It made my mind stable and helped me focus in one place,” she says. A chirpy, bright teenager, Vaishnavi eventually became the head girl of her college, a transformation she connects to the greater calmness and confidence she developed over time.
“As time goes by, as you start meditating and as there is more calmness in your mind, you realise that whatever bad thing has happened to you may actually become something that helps you grow in life,” she says. Her experience, alongside Arijit’s, points towards another dimension of recovery: the ability to develop an inner space from which a young person can respond differently to what is happening around them.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
Teenagers dealing with difficult childhood experiences, bullying, family instability or social isolation need empathy, understanding and meaningful support, rather than judgement or pressure to simply become more resilient. Arijit’s and Vaishnavi’s experiences show how meditation and breathing practices may help young people develop focus, confidence and emotional stability, while the UCLA study offers encouraging evidence of a possible improvement in social connectedness among adolescents who have experienced significant adversity.
However, personal experiences and research findings should not be taken to mean that these practices can resolve every form of distress or replace professional mental health care. Families, schools and communities must create safe environments where young people can speak openly, feel accepted and access appropriate support. Emotional wellbeing deserves the same attention as academic achievement, and no child should have to navigate distress alone.
How can parents and schools work together to help teenagers feel heard, connected and confident enough to seek support when they need it?
