Counselor Emily made this video to share tips for deep breathing for adults and children. A transcription of this video can be found below.
Video Transcription:
Hi, this is Emily with Garrett Counseling and today I want to tell you about deep breathing. Deep breathing is really important to do because usually when we’re feeling overwhelmed or anxious, we have a lot of shallow breathing and so what that is that’s coming from our chest and that type of breathing isn’t really helping your body fully get the oxygen that it needs.
What we like to do is we like to focus on breathing deeply. How you can kind of tell a difference between if you are breathing shallowly, or if you’re breathing deeply, is you place one hand on your chest and one hand under your stomach and when you breathe in and back out, when you’re taking a shallow breath, you’ll feel the hand on your chest going out and then back down. And when you breathe deeply, you’ll feel the hand on your stomach, go out and then back in and that’s how you know that you’re getting that good deep breath.
Another way that you can make this fun at home with your kiddos is have them grab a stuffed animal and what you’d do is you’re going to lay down on the floor, flat on the floor, and you’re going to put stuffed animal on your stomach and when you breathe in, you’re going to watch your stuffed animal go up. And you breathe out, watch it go back down. What they try to do is, they try to balance that stuffed animal on their tummy as they go in and back out.
So that’s how you know if you’re taking a deep breath. One of my favorite activities that I do for deep breathing is square breathing. What that is, is you will draw a square out in front of you and you’re going to breathe in for four counts. In. Hold for four counts; one, two, three, four. Out for four counts; one, two, three, four. And then hold; one, two, three four. And then you repeat. In. Hold. Out. Hold. And there are some quick tips on deep breathing. Thank you so much.