Breathing exercises for children are really a useful exercise. Not only help them control their emotions much better, they also improve their attention and focus, they feel more relaxed because they understand their body better and even improve their pronunciation and way of communicating.
It may seem silly to more than one person. Is it that children don't come to the world knowing how to breathe? Of course, the biomechanics of inspiration and exhalation are automatic processes that we all do and no one has ever had to teach us how to do them. Now, the question that should encourage us to a simple reflection is the following: we all know how to breathe, but do we do it well?
"Breathing exercises optimize children's brain development to improve their attention and reduce the effect of stress."
-Daniel Goleman-The answer is no. We don't always breathe correctly. To begin with, one more than evident fact is that we don't take advantage of all our lung capacity, we forget that we also have a diaphragm and this can wonderfully optimize the entire process. Also, another fact that we don't forget is that, on average, we breathe very quickly, we take very little air in each inhalation and this forces us to do it several times and arrhythmically.
All of this translates into a greater feeling of tiredness, frequent headaches and a greater impact of stress and anxiety in our body. Now, in the case of babies, there is a curious fact that must be considered. When a child arrives in the world he breathes correctly, he does it in a deep way and uses the diaphragm. However, as it grows, either by postures or by lifestyle, it loses that natural ability.
For this reason, teaching them through games how to breathe "well" will allow them to recover that forgotten ability to gain quality of life.
Breathing exercises for children
Daniel Goleman once explained in an article how beneficial breathing exercises can be for children. He gave the example of a small school in Harlem, New York, and how a teacher had introduced the dynamics of "friends who breathe" into their classrooms.Every morning, and before classes began, all those little children between 5 and 6 years old lay down on mats with a bear in their bellies. They had to take a breath for 3 seconds and see how their favorite stuffed animal rose. Then they inhaled deeply and started again.
This game lasted just over 5 minutes and yet, something that Daniel Goleman could see is that its effects were really beneficial. This exercise strengthened the children's brain circuits to improve attention and emotional management processes. In this way, those students who had been practicing these morning breathing sessions for more than 2 years showed fewer problems of attention and hyperactivity as well as a greater willingness to study and learn.
As we can see, something as simple and elementary as dedicating a small interval a day to this series of breathing exercises can have a very positive impact on your development and your abilities. It's worth a try. Let's see some of these techniques now.
1. The snake game
Simple, fun and effective. The game of the snake is one of the favorites of the smallest and consists of the following.- We will set the children to sit on a chair showing that they should have a straight back.
- They should put their hands on the abdomen and focus on the orders we are going to give them.
- Next, they should take a deep breath through the nose for 4 seconds (we can count the time for them) noticing in turn how their bellies swell.
- Afterward, they must let go of that air while they make the sound of the snake, a loud hiss that should last as long as they can.
2. We are going to inflate a very large balloon
The second of the breathing exercises for children is just as entertaining. For this, we will follow these steps.- The child should sit comfortably in a chair with a straight back.
- Now we will explain that the game consists of inflating an invisible balloon, a balloon of colors that must be very large.
- To do this, they must take air through the nose and then exhale it imagining how it swells and how it is getting bigger and bigger.
In this exercise children (like adults) have a tendency to catch air through the mouth. In fact, it's what we all do when we inflate a balloon. For this reason, we must correct them and tell them that the air is caught by the nose while our belly swells and that they must then exhale, pursing their lips as if they had that giant colored balloon in their mouths.
3. Breathing like elephants
This breathing game is one of the most successful among the little children, they love it. The guidelines that we will follow are the following.- Children should stand with their legs slightly apart.
- We will indicate that they will become elephants and that they will breathe like them.
- They must take a deep breath through the nose and when they do, they will raise their arms as if they were the animal's trunk, trying, in turn, to make the abdomen swell.
- Then, it is time to exhale, for this they must do it through the mouth in a loud way and lowering the arms while leaning a little carrying the "elephant's trunk" down.
4. The breathing of the leopard
The last of the breathing exercises for children is somewhat more complex but equally fun and effective to initiate them in diaphragmatic breathing.- We will tell the children to put themselves on the ground on all fours as if they were a leopard.
- Now they must take air through the nose, noticing how the abdomen swells and descends the spine.
- Now they must exhale through the mouth, perceiving in turn how the abdomen empties and the back rises a little.
To conclude, note that there are many more breathing exercises for children at our fingertips, it is enough just to find those that you like the most and with those who perform correctly every step to make them a daily routine. Only in this way, they will learn to breathe better, boost their development, and their quality of life a little more.
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