Wellbeing

Breathing Techniques

You’ve probably heard people talk about trying breathing techniques to help manage stress and anxiety. And the people suggesting learning these techniques are saying the right things. But how do breathing techniques actually help you and your kids?

When we experience different emotions, anger, stress, happiness, our breath changes. When we are happy or calm we breathe rhythmically without even thinking about it. When experiencing anxiety, pain or stress, our breathing becomes shallow or we tend to hold our breath. This only exacerbates the feelings of stress and plays out in our bodies physiologically. We might start to feel pain or sick, which leads to greater anxiety and the cycle continues. 

To break the cycle, breathing through experiences can help to reduce symptoms, ease anxiety and kick the bodies parasympathetic nervous system into gear, which helps to facilitate an ease in symptoms. Breathing techniques can also help to change your focus and stop you from spiralling in negative emotions. Here are some useful breathing techniques to try at home with your children;

Blowing Out the Candles

Ask the child to pretend that they are blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. Demonstrate to your child taking a slow and steady deep breath in and then blow out the breath in a steady slow manner as if blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. Repeat the process, then you may like to suggest to your child that with the next breath in, they gather up any fear or pain in their body and as the breath out, to blow away the pain. 

Four Square Breathing 

Involves making a square in the breath cycle. Inhale for a count of 4, hold for a count of 4, exhale for a count of 4 and hold again for a count of 4. Repeat this for a total of 10 breath cycles.

Calming Breath

Have the child find a comfortable position sitting or lying down. Ask them to rest their hand above their belly button. This should position the hand above the diaphragm.  Diaphragmatic breathing involves learning to move the diaphragm more fully as you breathe, encouraging deep breathing, rather than keeping breathing high in the chest and shallow. Ask your child to breathe in slowly and deeply through their nose as you count slowly from 1 to 3. They should feel their hand begin to rise as they do, once you see it move, provide positive reinforcement. Once your child has fully inhaled, ask your child to slowly breathe out as you count backwards from 3 to 1 and as you do they should see and feel their hand lower back down. 

Book of the Week 

I Am Peace by Susan Verde, is a beautiful book for children about mindfulness practices including breathing. There are lots of great ideas in this story about how you can be more mindful and perhaps some things you could put into practise at home. We have this book in our library if you would like to borrow it.