The Long-Slow Breath

Shallow breathing (defined by short quick breaths where not much oxygen is taken into the body) is commonly caused by stress in adults. But did you know that children under stress become shallow breathers as well? Adults who slouch when seated and standing also tend to be shallow breathers, simply because their body position is not allowing their lungs to take in much oxygen. But have you noticed how children are sitting these days? Slouched in front of the TV in their gaming chairs? Breath work and awareness is important at any age -- but in my opinion, its most important as a child. The habits we form as children often last us a lifetime, so it is important that children are aware of what their breath is and what it does. In my yoga classes for children the breath comes up a lot. We talk about it, we do activities to use it and change it and feel it, we use art and toys to see it and express it. There are a lot of different ways I describe what breath is to children, and there are a lot of different ways they describe it to me! But two of the most popular types of breath we talk about in my classes are the quick breath and the long-slow breath. The "quick breath" as I explain it to the children, is the type of breathing you do when your rushing around, doing hard work, or very tired from running with your friends. It happens when you breath in only a little bit of air very quickly and then breath out a little bit of air really quickly. This is OK some of the time, but you don't want to be a quick breather ALL of the time. If you do a lot of quick breaths you may start to feel dizzy, sick, or tired. It isn't good for your heart or for your lungs. The long-slow breath, is the type of breathing that we yogis try to do ALL of the time. It is when you take a very long, slow breath in, bringing as much air into your mouth and to your lungs as you can, and then breath all that air out, just as slow, until it all leaves your lungs and your mouth. To illustrate the difference I often have the children try both. First we do a quick breath, and I demonstrate how its done. Then, we try the long slow breath. At first we try this one through our mouth, then only through our nose. There are several different ways to demonstrate how the long-slow breath works:

• COUNTING. We can count while we breath, trying to get to a count of 5 on the in breath, and a count of 5 on the out breath.
• BREATHING BALL. We can also use a toy which the kids know as the "breathing ball." The actual name is the Hoberman ball, and its a small plastic ball that doubles to almost 3x its original size when you open it up. We start with the small closed ball, and when we take our in breath, the ball starts to "fill up" with air and expand. When we take our out breath, the air leaves the ball and it gets smaller. The children will breathe along with the ball and match its speed. This is great for getting the kids to slow down their breath after an upbeat activity.
• RAINBOW BREATH. Children hear a lot about the breath, but when do they actually get to see it? Seeing is believing! Each child gets a piece of chalk and sits at the chalkboard with their eyes closed. They place the chalk at a spot on the chalkboard and as they take a breath in they move the chalk up. When they take a breath out, they draw the chalk down. They continue to do this for a minute or so, keeping their eyes closed. Then they can put down the chalk, open their eyes, and actually see their own breath in color on the chalk board. We alternate from a few rainbow quick breaths to a few rainbow long-slow breaths. This is a great way to illustrate the difference between the two as they will see long beautiful lines for the long-slow breath and short choppy lines for the quick breath.
  

Teaching your child the long-slow breath is a great tool for them to have. They can use this breath to calm themselves down when they are all wound up or anxious, or simply to slow themselves down after play, or at bed time.
Please feel free to share your own tricks of the trade!