Fox News Hosts Spar Over NYC Mayor’s ‘Mindful Breathing’ Proposal: ‘Isn’t Yoga Tied and Rooted In Hinduism?’

Fox News’ Kennedy spoke up in favor of  New York Mayor Eric Adams‘ plan for mindful breathing in classrooms as Raymond Arroyo questioned the practice’s ties to yoga and Hinduism.

“America’s public school test scores are falling at a staggering rate, but New York City Mayor Eric Adams is focusing on — breathing,” said Emily Compagno. “Adams is rolling out a new plan for the city’s public schools — mandatory two to five minutes of mindful breathing per day.”

She rolled tape on Adams saying, “It’s a valuable, low-cost tool that is proven to help mental health and well-being.”

Fox host Raymond Arroyo said children need “more in-class instruction” and fewer “government mandates.” He then questioned the motivation behind the practice.

“Incidentally, he’s got… a yoga and mindfulness teacher in the school. Isn’t yoga tied and rooted in Hinduism? If we can have that, maybe we need to have Bible study and rosary mindfulness,” he argued.

Kayleigh McEnany said the whole idea was “ridiculous” and didn’t belong in schools.

“And he also thinks this is going to stop violence,” McEnany said. If you think the violence in our schools is going to be stopped through breathing — uh, good luck, Mayor Adams. I’m more on board with your comments about God going out of schools and gun violence surging up.”

“I’m a huge advocate of mindfulness,” countered Kennedy. “This is something — the data bears this out — people who participate in mindful breathing, especially kids — we have such a mental health crisis in our schools right now. In my daughter’s high school, they had so many lockdowns because of violence and threats of violence. And mindful breathing does, in fact, rewire and reset your brain. It allows you to sort of set a foundation so you are able to better comprehend reading and math lessons, and it does calm you down so you start the day in a better place, so you’re less likely to have a reactive brain, because reactive brains tend to react to one another, especially adolescents.”

But the dissenters still weren’t buying it.

“It may help some but I don’t think it should be mandatory. I’d rather have school security guards,” McEnany said.

“I’d rather have school prayer, which is the same thing, but we’ll leave it there,” Arroyo said.

Watch the video above via Fox News.

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