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Deep Breathing

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This 2-minute video for families features Mental Health Therapist Stephanie Dann talking about deep breathing. -When we are upset or stressed, the thinking part of our brain stops working well. -The best way to get your brain back online and be yourself again is deep breathing. -Deep breathing involves taking in a lot more air into our lungs than we normally would and pushing it out. Putting your hand on your stomach and watching it go up and down can help you know if you are doing it right, also known as “belly breathing”. Challenge: When you feel stressed or upset, try taking three intentional deep breaths to help bring your thinking brain back online.

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Hi. My name is Stephanie Dann. I'm a mental health therapist for the White River School District and today I wanted to talk about deep breathing. There may have been a time in your life where you felt kind of stressed or upset and someone said to you, "Just take a deep breath." That is very annoying to hear when we're upset. But it is some of the best advice that you can get when you're feeling that way. When we're upset and stressed out the thinking part of our brain called prefrontal cortex stops working. This is the part that's right here, right behind your forehead. It's a really important part of our brain that helps to control our emotions, our decision-making, and it's even the center for learning. That's why when we're upset, we end up saying and doing things we wouldn't normally do, because our brain isn't working the way it normally is. The best way to get our brain back online, and back to being who we are, is breathing. Oxygen brings us back normal self. When I talk to kids about deep breathing, when I'm doing therapy, I've had them say things to me like, "Why do I need to deep breathe? I'm breathing right now. I breathe all the time." But deep breathing is a special kind of breathing that helps when were upset. Deep breathing involves taking it a lot more air into our lungs, and pushing out that air. Let's do a little bit of that together One thing that can be really helpful is putting your hand on your stomach, because you're going to feel it going in and out. You ready? Taking a deep breath {breathing in} Feel your hand go up. Breathe out {breathing out} Feel your hand go back down. Breathe in again {breathing in} almost like a balloon filling up. Breathe out {breathing out} One more time breathe in. {breathing in} Breathe out. {breathing out} If you're doing deep breathing right you should be able to feel it. You should be able to feel your hand going up and down, the air going in and out. You also might be able to hear it. One piece of advice that someone gave to me one time that I thought was really helpful is, if you don't feel like you have a minute to breathe, take two.  Taking in that oxygen, doing that deep breathing, will help to settle your brain down and get you back to a place where you can be yourself and function really well.

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