The teen girl’s guide to self-enlightenment

Yoga’s popularity has spawned niches galore. There’s yoga for golfers, pregnant women, even dogs. Now teenage girls can learn the benefits of this ancient practice in “Um, Like ... Om: A Girl Goddess’s Guide to Yoga” (Little, Brown & Co., 2005).

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‘Um, Like ... Om: A Girl Goddess’s Guide to Yoga’: Author Evan Cooper remembers what it was like to be a teenager and the angst that went with it. Luckily she discovered yoga in her teens, and she says it provided her with a way to cope with various issues and crises. “When I found yoga,” she says, “I literally had a moment when I knew it was going to change my life.”

Her book combines yoga instruction and nutrition guides with life lessons -- and shows how yoga can foster a healthy lifestyle. Chapters include information on breathing techniques, plus yogic sit-ups, stretches and poses such as warrior, tree and butterfly. Young readers will also learn why it’s OK not to be perfect, ways to silence that inner critic, and how to get along with family and friends.

Cooper, who has been teaching yoga to teenage girls in the Los Angeles area for several years, says yoga is beneficial for teens on several levels: “When you’re that age, your balance is off because you’re still growing. I’ve seen girls go from being unstable and awkward to really having a sense of being in their bodies,” she says. Classes often become a forum for discussing problems and concerns. Taking yoga early in life, she adds, also creates an appreciation for fitness that may carry on through adulthood.

Price: $10. Available at bookstores.

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-- Jeannine Stein