Hello everyone,
Today I'm going to talk to you about how we can use our special breathing to help us to calm down and relax.
Sometimes we're so busy rushing about and having fun and doing lots of nice things that we forget to relax.
We're so busy running and jumping and playing with our friends and we get tired and it's really nice if we can just take a few breaths and help to relax and calm ourselves down.
So first of all,
I want you to get into a nice comfortable position and that can be anywhere you like.
You can be sitting on the floor or maybe on a seat or perhaps on the grass outside or even in your bed,
It doesn't matter.
I want you to feel all relaxed and have a good wiggle until you feel better.
And then we're ready to think about our breathing.
And I want you to imagine your very favourite smell first of all.
I wonder what that could be.
It might be a strawberry or some other nice fruit.
It might be a beautiful flower from the garden that smells really nice.
Or perhaps it's your favourite food like pizza or maybe even chocolate.
And I want you to imagine that whatever you've chosen as your smell,
That it's right there in front of you and you're going to take a gentle deep breath in up your nose like this.
Really smell that lovely smell.
Then when you've got to the top,
Very gently through your mouth,
Blow that smell away.
I wonder if you could hold your hand out nice and flat and then we'll smell that lovely smell again.
Deep breath in and then very gently blow onto your hand.
See if you can feel your breath blowing away on your hand nice and gently.
Well done.
Now I wonder if we could feel our breath anywhere else.
So I want you to put both your hands on your tummy just now.
Both hands on your tummy and then remembering our lovely breath,
Take a deep breath in.
Smell that lovely smell.
And blow it back out again.
What happened to your hands on your tummy?
Let's try again and see.
Deep breath in,
Breathe out.
My hands went up and down on my tummy.
I think yours might have done that too.
So that's a really nice way that's using our breathing to help to calm us down.
And we can also use that same breathing and pretend that we're doing starfish breathing.
So I want you to pretend that you've got your very own starfish.
So I want you to lift your hand up in front of your face and spread your fingers out like a star.
Can you do that for me?
Stretch them out and then with your pointy finger on your other hand,
I want you to start at the very bottom of your thumb and when you take your deep breath in to smell your lovely smell,
I want you to take your finger up to the top of your thumb.
Right to the top and then over the top and breathe out and take your finger all the way down to the bottom of your thumb.
That's one leg of the starfish.
Then let's take a deep breath in again and go up that finger with your pointy finger.
Right to the top and breathe out taking your finger all the way down to the bottom.
Now we should be at the bottom of our middle finger.
So take a deep breath in,
Go all the way to the top of your middle finger,
Blow back out until you're at the bottom and then we're going to go to the next finger.
Nice deep breath in,
Right to the top,
Over the top and blow our breath out all the way down,
All the way to the bottom.
We've got one last little finger,
Nice deep breath in,
All the way down.
Wow,
I feel really calm now.
I hope you do too.
I wonder though,
If you don't,
Maybe you could try it one more time.
I think you're all going to be really good at doing starfish breathing.
And remember,
Now that you can do it,
You need to tell a grown up how to do it too because sometimes grown ups need to calm down and relax as well.
So have one more,
Breathe in,
Breathe out and I hope you're feeling nice and calm.
See you next time.
Bye.
