Belly Breathing
Belly Breathing
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Using belly breathing...
Reduces anxiety
Provides technique for self regulation
Creates an easily implemented coping strategy
Implementation
Implementation
Overview
Ask student to sit up straight and explain that it’s easier to breathe when they have good posture.
Introduce the breathing strategy – breathing in through your nose for a count of six then out through your nose for a count of six.
Explain that nose breathing is different from mouth breathing and that it helps to calm us down more quickly than when we use our mouths. (You can use the example of a dog panting to demonstrate the difference between nose and mouth breathing.)
Demonstrate breathing in through your nose for a total of 6 counts.
Then breathe out slowly for 6 counts.
Ask youth to join you while paying attention to their bellies rising and falling. They can close their eyes if they are comfortable.
Repeat the breathing cycle three more times.
Ask how the breathing made them feel.
Reinforce the fact that breathing deeply will help them calm their minds and bodies, especially when they are excited or upset.
Core components
Core components
Core Components
Breathing must be explicitly taught through modeling and practice
Students should trial and self-assess its effectiveness on them as an individual
All steps of the process must be completed and cycle repeated.
Proactive Implementation
Proactively establishing belly breathing as a tool for students to use when dysregulated requires upfront teaching and practice. Students should trial multiple breathing techniques.
Responsive Implementation
Responsively implementing belly breathing requires the supervising adult to explicitly teach the why behind deep breathing techniques. This usually is implemented due to students needing new regulation tools. The why and a link to concrete events that could have benefited from deep breathing techniques.
Bucket Fits
Bucket Fits
Connection
If the need is connection then the student may practice or teach the strategies with others.
Skills Training
If the need is skill building then the student may use belly breathing prior, during, or after particular challenging times to build resilience.
Awareness
If the need is awareness then the student may combine with journal or other monitoring technique to log their state prior or after its implementation.
Emotional Regulation
If the need is regulation then the student may keep belly breathing as a regualtion strategy or be prompted using a secret signal by an adult to use.
Consider Factors Prior to Start
Student factors-
Gender, race, function, topography, family dynamics, interpersonal relationships
Contextual factors -
Resource availability, classroom instruction, physical space, time, technology
Intensifying or Fading During
Duration
Frequency
Feedback
Reinforcement
Goals
REMINDER
Make a note to document when you're starting this intervention.
After 10 consecutive school days of implementation, use collected data to determine the intervention's effectiveness.
Resource
Resource
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