With participants ranging in age from two to ten, this is no ordinary yoga class.

These youngsters are as carefree as children should be. But some experts believe that teaching yoga to children will help them deal with stress and learn how to relax.

Yoga teacher Nikkola Woods, 31, from Keighley, who is also a mum, believes the pressure on schools to perform and the tests children have to undertake at a young age, contribute to stress.

Nikkola has practised yoga for 11 years, and says it has given her the flexibility to fit around her young family.

“I practised yoga on and off but more seriously in the past few years,” she says. “I realised the benefits it had for me.”

Yoga originated in India and is described as a physical, spiritual discipline. It can help to tone and relax the body and clear and sharpen the mind.

Nikkola says yoga helped her through her divorce. She says the physical health benefits are not solely for adults.

Conscious of how difficult it can be motivating children to exercise, she realised how much enjoyment her own children had while she practised some yoga moves with them.

Researching on the internet, Nikkola discovered that yoga was being taught to children in other parts of the world, predominantly America and Australia.

Yoga has become increasingly popular in the UK over recent years and, knowing the benefits it brings, parents are keen to introduce it to their children.

Baby yoga, focusing on gentle movements, has been around for some time, but Nikkola was keen to teach it to toddlers and older children.

After leaving school she worked her way up from being a junior secretary to become a legal executive in a solicitors’ company and, while appreciative of the flexibility her employers gave her to fit around her family, Nikkola felt the time had come for a fresh challenge.

She launched Beaming Buddhas this year after completing a course in London. Nikkola offers two types of classes – family yoga for youngsters aged two to four and a children’s club for four to ten-year-olds.

The classes begin with a fun warm-up session such as jumping exercises on mats. Games, songs and stories are incorporated into the session, ensuring that youngsters are entertained while they exercise.

Nikkola often touches on topics children may be doing at school, such as recycling, so it isn’t all about exercise, although lifestyle and fitness are important elements of the sessions.

Exercise is vital to try and stem Britain’s growing obesity problem and get youngsters away from a lazy lifetyle at their computer games consoles.

Nikkola says yoga has many health and well-being benefits for youngsters. “It increases flexibility and develops strength, and helps with balance.

“It helps to develop children’s concentration span, it can help with children who are hyperactive,” she says.

“They can really benefit from yoga as they get older because it improves a child’s confidence as well. It’s not competitive, they move at their own progress, but they will realise they can do things and it helps with confidence. Not only that, because they relax at the end of the class it helps to reduce stress so they can learn how to make themselves relaxed and how to get themselves to sleep at night.”

Nikkola is currently running family yoga and a children’s club at the War Memorial Hall in East Morton, pre-school yoga sessions at Kiddicare Nursery in Keighley, and children’s yoga clubs in after-school clubs for Merlin Top Primary, also in Keighley, and Burley Oaks Primary School in Burley-in-Wharfedale.

“I know how much my children like doing yoga with me at home, and that is a good indicator for me,” she says.

* For more information, visit beamingbuddhas.co.uk.