What is “calm breathing”?
Calm breathing is a
technique that teaches your child to slow down his or her breathing when
feeling stressed or anxious.
Why is calm breathing
important?
When your child is feeling
anxious, his or her breathing will change. When we are anxious, we tend to take short, quick, shallow breaths or even
hyperventilate.
This type of anxious breathing can actually make the feeling of
anxiety worse!
Doing calm breathing can help lower your child’s anxiety, and give
him or her a sense of control
Calm
breathing is a great portable tool that your child can use when feeling anxious,
especially in situations when you are not there to help him or her through it.
How To Do It
Step 1: Explaining calm
breathing to your child
This is a tool your child can use anywhere, anytime! Other people
will probably not even notice when your child is using this tool. For older
children and teens, explain that taking short quick breaths actually increases
other feelings of anxiety (e.g. heart racing, dizziness, or headaches). Calm
breathing will slow down his or her breathing.
Step 2: Teaching the calm
breathing technique
Take a slow breath in through the nose (for about 4 seconds)
Hold your breath for 1 or 2 seconds
Exhale slowly through the mouth (over about 4 seconds)
Wait
2-3 seconds before taking another breath
(5-7 seconds for teenagers) Repeat for at least 5 to 10 breaths
Calm Breathing for Younger
Children: Bubble Blowing
A fun way to teach your
younger child how to do calm breathing is the “bubble blowing” technique. Using
a toy soap bubble container and wand (available at any toy store), have your
child practice blowing bubbles. The breathing required for blowing soap bubbles
is the same as what is used for calm breathing. Simply make sure your child
waits a second or two before blowing another bubble. Then practice “blowing
bubbles” without a bubble wand.
Important Hint: Although “bubble
blowing” is a great way to practice calm breathing, it is important to
remind your child that he
or she is doing this to learn how to breathe calmly. In other words, do not
simply ask your child to blow bubbles without explaining this tool is used to
help to manage anxiety.
Here’s a script of how to introduce bubble blowing to your young
child
Talking about bubble
blowing
“Today we are going to
practice a new skill called calm breathing. This will be a new tool that you
can use when you feel anxious, such as when you are at school. When you use
calm breathing, you take slow breaths. A good way to practice it is to do some
bubble blowing, because you have to take a slow, deep breath to make a big
bubble, and you have to blow the bubble really slowly or it will pop! So let’s
practice. Take a slow, deep breath in, hold it for a second, and then slowly
blow some bubbles. Good job! Now
let’s try that again.”
For Older Children and
Teens: Belly Breathing
Since calm breathing
involves taking slow, controlled breaths from the diaphragm, another way to
explain this technique is to present it as “belly breathing”. The steps for
this exercise are as follows:
Inhale slowly for 4 seconds through the nose.
Ask
your child to pretend that he or she is blowing up a balloon in the belly, so
your child’s belly should inflate when inhaling.
Wait
2 seconds, and then slowly exhale through the mouth. Ask your child to pretend
that he or she is emptying the balloon of air, so the tummy should deflate.
Wait 2 seconds, and then repeat.
Helpful Hint: When belly breathing, make sure your child’s upper body
(shoulders and chest area) is
fairly relaxed and still. Only the belly should be moving!
Step 3: Practice,
practice, practice!
In order for your child to be
able to use this new tool effectively, he or she first needs to be an
expert at
calm breathing.
The only way to become an expert is to practice this skill daily!
Rules of practice:
Until
your child is comfortable with this skill, he or she should practice it at
least twice a day, doing 10 calm breaths in a row.
When you are practicing calm breathing, start when your child is
relaxed, before he or she is
feeling anxious. Your child needs to be comfortable breathing this
way when feeling calm!
Once
your child is comfortable with this technique, he or she can start using it in
situations that cause anxiety.
As a final note…
If you are using cognitive coping
cards with your child (see Developing and Using
Cognitive
Coping Cards), calm breathing can also be used as a coping statement. For
example,
“ I’m
feeling a little anxious right now. Maybe I should do some belly breathing!”
“I don’t need to worry if I feel scared. I can always do some
bubble blowing !”