What are the relaxation techniques and when can children do them?
Diaphramatic breathing involves relearning a way of breathing that we did instinctively from birth and throughout infancy and still do while sleeping. It enables you to fully drop your diaphragm when inhaling and thus more fully expand your lungs, getting a more efficient amount of oxygen in your blood. Shallow or chest breathing is used frequently when a person is anxious or tense. This can limit the oxygen in the blood which increases the likelihood of muscle tension and the stress response. Diaphiagmatic breathing or deep belly breathing is something that you can do for a sustained period of relaxation (e.g. 10 minutes in morning or night) or interspersed throughout your day to break the pattern of tension and muscular tightness that we often maintain on an ongoing basis. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk originally from Vietnam, has written about using the sound of a bell or some other cue to remember to take three breaths. In my work with patients, I call it, “transition breathing”
