Hi there,
It's Kara again.
Today I'm going to teach you another trick and a different kind of breathing.
This one you can use whether you're happy or sad or mad and just need to calm down,
Check in,
And see how you feel.
Did you ever notice how sometimes we breathe and our chest expands and then other times you breathe and your belly expands?
This is just two different kinds of breathing.
And the cool thing is when we focus on how we're doing it,
We can actually bring our awareness,
Which is where we're focusing,
To ourselves.
So if something's going on around us that we don't like or we're feeling busy and overwhelmed or scared,
We can come to this and focus on ourselves just by focusing on our breathing.
Pretty cool,
Huh?
Let's try it.
If you can,
This is really,
Really good if you lie down.
Do you have a spot that you can lie down?
You're already lying down.
Well good.
Let's try this together.
And don't worry,
If you're sitting and there's no room to lie down,
You're good to sit too.
Place your hands,
One hand on your chest and the other on your belly.
This will help you notice where you're breathing.
Now take a big deep breath in and try and see if you can lift your hand that's on your chest.
Great job.
And if you notice that both of your hands raised,
That's fine.
Let's try again.
Take a nice deep breath in and see if you can get your hand that's just on your chest to raise up.
Very good.
Now breathe out.
Now we're going to try and see if we can get our hand that's on our belly to raise.
Very good.
Breathe out.
Now when we want particularly to calm down or get a little bit of room to feel better again,
What really helps is if we breathe into our bellies.
When we're super upset,
Breathing into our bellies gives a really good signal to tell our body to calm down and it's okay.
So now take both hands and put them on your belly.
We're going to try to raise both hands now.
Are you ready?
Take a deep breath in and breathe it out.
See if you can breathe in and when you get your breath all the way to the top,
Hold it for just a second.
Ready?
Hold.
Blow it back out.
Breathe in.
Hold.
And blow it back out.
I'm going to let you do it two more times without me counting so that way you can get calm.
How do you feel now?
Great.
Remember this anytime you're starting to feel a little upset or tired or confused or angry,
That you can always go into a space,
Quiet,
Maybe your bedroom or somewhere quiet and alone and lay down with your hands on your belly for more belly breathing.
We'll see you again soon.
