It is widely accepted that breathing exercises for kids are one of the most effective ways to help both kids and adults calm down. Breathing is frequently used in health settings to reduce stress and anxiety.
Children who are able to regulate their emotions are happier, mature, and more successful in life.
Since you can’t tell a child to take a “deep breath” during a “meltdown” because they won’t know how to, you can teach them “how” using “breathing exercises”.
How Does Deep Breathing Help Reduce Stress
Breathing is a natural process which we hardly notice. However, it is proven to be helpful in enabling your child to ride intense emotions until they are in a better position to face them or discuss with an adult. When a child is calm and normal the body is in a “rest and digest” mode. The breathing and heartbeat are normal. Whereas when a child is worried, anxious or emotionally charged, the body goes into a “flight or fight” mode. The breathing becomes intense and the heart rate increases. The purpose of deep breathing is to get more oxygen back into our blood stream and eventually to brains as the capillaries expand whilst deep breathing.
Now, since you are aware of the scientific reasoning behind how we get more oxygen into our brains, here are the benefits of deep breathing.
Benefits Of Deep Breathing For Kids with Stress and Anger
There are a number of benefits associated with breathing exercises that benefit kids/children.
- Relief stress and anxiety
- Promotes natural calm and lifted mood.
- It helps lower blood pressure and heart rate
- Reduces tension and restlessness.
- Improves concentration, focus, and emotional stability.
Well, the benefits are quite obvious but we all know with kids it is not easy to get them to practice deep breathing. Here are 7 fun and effective breathing exercises that will teach kids mindfulness, anxiety control, and stress management.
7 Children’s Breathing Techniques to Calm Kids With Stress and Anger
1. Belly Breathing
Belly breathing also is known as deep breathing, abdominal breathing, or diaphragmatic breathing has been proven to be highly effective both as a calming-down strategy and for health-related reasons.
It is also a very simple exercise to teach older kids how to breathe.
Calm breathing involves taking slow and controlled breaths. This is called “belly breathing”.
How To do the belly breathing :
- Inhale slowly for 4 seconds through the nose.
- Ask your child to pretend as if they are blowing up a balloon inside their stomach. ( they should be able to feel their stomach inflate)
- Pause for 2 seconds, and then slowly exhale through the mouth.
- Ask your child to pretend that he or she is emptying the balloon of air, they should feel their belly actually deflate.
- Pause for 2 seconds, and then repeat.
- Repeat as needed
Check out this fun video to learn how Rocco was able to train his body to respond calmly in the face of anger and frustration by practising belly breathing daily
2. Bubble Breath
This breathing exercise can be done standing while you are outside or in your garden
How To do bubble breath breathing:
- Imagine you have a wand to blow bubbles
- Take a deep breath in through the nose
- Slowly breath out through the mouth as you are blowing bubbles through a wand
- Repeat this breathing 5 times
3. Feathers Exercise
Feathers are a fun and super awesome way to teach your child to breathe.
How to do the feather breathing exercise:
- Gather different feathers. (Since feathers come in many colours and sizes so this can also be a fun activity for your child)
- Ask your child to choose one feather they prefer and hold it.
- Ask your kid to take in a deep breath. To help the child learn about deep breathing, ask them to put their hand on their abdomen, Explain that when they breathe in, their breath should push their hands upwards. Tell the child to inhale for a count of four, then hold breath for a count of four.
- Ask them to exhale slowly through the nose. Tell the child that the feather should flutter as they breathe out.
- Repeat the exercise for 5 to 10 minutes or until your child feels relaxed.
Alternatively, another way to use the feathers method is to have your child pick a feather and place it on a table. When they breathe out, the feather or feathers should move across the table.
4. Use Flowers
Flowers are also a great way to teach kids about breathing deeply for control.
How to do the flowers breathing exercise:
- Ask your kid to pick a flower.
- Tell him to breathe in through his nose on a count of four, inhale the flower deeply, then hold his breath for a count of four.
- Ask the child to breathe out through the mouth.
- Repeat the exercise for 5 to 10 minutes or until your child feels relaxed enough.
- You can also tell your child to visualize and smell an imaginary flower that they love.
5. Shoulder Roll Breath
Using yoga poses to breath is another great technique to teach kids to pause and breath
How To do the Shoulder roll breath:
- Take a deep, long breath, and relax your entire body.
- Now roll your shoulders up to your ears as you inhale deeply for a count of 3.
- Breathe out through your mouth and roll your shoulders far back and down (as far away from your ears as you can manage) as you exhale for a count of 4.
- Repeat slowly in a continuous movement ( in between shoulder rolls) while breathing in and out.
6. Five-Finger Breathing
Numbers are an awesome technique to teach breathing exercises to kids. It has an overall calming effect.
How To do the Five-Finger Breathing:
- Sit or stand comfortably with your back straight up.
- Open the palm of one hand wide.
- Now with the pointer finger of the opposite hand, slowly trace your fingers while breathing.
- Trace up on side of your thumb, 1, 2, 3, 4 trace down the other side of your thumb, 1, 2, 3, 4….
- Repeat for all five fingers.
Simple!!!
7. The One Nostril Breath
This is good for kids with big emotions and strong anger problems because the exercise is actually funny and silly in a way.
How to do the one nostril breath:
- Have your kid place their finger over one nostril, breathe in deeply.
- Next, switch your finger to the other nostril as you breathe out.
- Once you have exhaled slowly, switch nostrils and repeat.
This is a great exercise when your child suffers big, uncontrollable emotions.
Want to teach your kids effective mindful breathing techniques in a fun & effective way? Click here to buy the breathing cards, bracelets and bookmarks bundle
Want to learn how to develop an emotionally intelligent child? Check out my articles:
Raising an emotionally intelligent child
What is mindfulness for kids Everything you need to know
References:
10 BREATHING EXERCISES FOR KIDS WITH ANXIETY OR ANGER | MINDFUL AMAZING, NOV. 2019, Link Here
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