When emotions take over, breath. Parents, teacher, even random bystanders would probably suggest breathing deeply to a person in evident distress. However, not so many people know exactly how to breathe and even less actually practice these skills.
The majority of breathing techniques have very simple principles to support them. Inhale activates the sympathetic nervous system, which promotes alertness. Exhale activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps us to calm down. Even breath without bumps and jumps moves the whole organism towards balance and stabilization. When a person concentrates their attention on breathing, for example counting the rhythm, other things such as emotions, thoughts and sensations, fade into the background. Active, deep, exaggerated breathing can make feelings stronger, more evident. Posture and movement can support all the effects described above. In a nutshell, this is all there is to breathing techniques, at least the ones I know, recommend and practice. The difficult part comes now – paying attention and practicing every day.
Nowadays, many educational facilities begin to offer basic self-regulation techniques to students of all ages. I had a privilege of seeing some of the inside workings of public education in Russia, US and Spain. Here, and I dare say in most other places around the globe, public schools in general are quite rigid when it comes to introducing new programs and activities. No wonder – there is always a scarcity of time and money and an overabundance of students. Therefore, if schools decide to include something in their curriculum, it means it is definitely worth it. Kids show better results, fight less and simply are better behaved.
What can we do at home to help children learn how to use breath for their emotional needs? There are wonderful specialists in this field, who dedicate their time to research this topic. They would probably give you a lot more suggestions and techniques. Here I simply want to share what we invented together with my three-year-old daughter.
I will describe two games that we created ourselves. The third one is a creative adaptation of something we stole from one wonderful granny. I started using our games in bed before or between stories. Here is how it goes.
First game. Fingers. We simply count on fingers inhales and exhales. We started with one hand and five breath cycles, now we do both. When I show what we are going to do, I make a clear accent on a longer smoother outbreath. There is nothing said, just shown. That is all.
Second game. Reach the ceiling. I say, “Look, I can reach the ceiling”, and make a very long exhale following it with my finger. ”Can you do this?” “Let’s see, who can reach higher?” This can be repeated a couple of times, while the child still finds this interesting.
When I decided to try this for the first time, I was hesitant and thought she might not want to play or find this boring. However, children have an amazing ability to grab onto what they need. My daughter started repeating this with enthusiasm, and now reminds me about the breathing games if I forget. She even used finger game spontaneously on the street a few times, when she felt overwhelmed. It was pure self-regulation, because I never explained what we are doing and why. We were just playing.
We learned the third game from a friend’s granny. This is how it goes. At a pedestrian crossing with a red light, suggest to the child: “Let’s blow at it, and it will turn green”. She was simply blowing at the traffic light together with her grandson. I could not help it and started doing the same with my daughter. The following time I decided to include some more wisdom into it: “It didn’t change yet? What if we try to relax our shoulders? Bellies? Here you go!” This is just the beginning. You can spice this game up with whatever works for you and fits the situation: add movement, directions, change postures, breath in rather than out.
Comments are disabled