1-2-3-4-5… BREATHE

I love how tools which are useful for kids’ emotional wellbeing often also help with eating, and vice versa. In this article, I want to share a quick and accessible exercise you can teach your child, which will help them learn to recognise and manage anxiety. It’s great for all children, whether they have a specific problem with anxiety or not. After all, are there any of us who can honestly say nothing ever worries us?

First, help your child recognise when they are experiencing anxiety. If you think they may be feeling anxious, tell them “you are feeling worried”. Or if they are older, you could use the word “anxious”. Ask them how they are experiencing it in their body… can they feel it in their tummy? How would they describe the sensation of their heart beating? What is happening to their breathing? Teach them to recognise these physical symptoms of anxiety.

Here are a few (from the British mental health charity, Mind’s website)

• a churning feeling in your stomach
• feeling light-headed or dizzy
• pins and needles
• feeling restless or unable to sit still
• headaches, backache or other aches and pains
• faster breathing
• a fast, thumping or irregular heartbeat
• sweating or hot flushes

Once they have identified that they are feeling anxious, your child can do the 1-2-3-4-5-BREATHE exercise. This is something you can teach them in advance, when they are not feeling worried.

Very simply, it goes like this:

1. Breathe in for one count… hold your breath for one count… breathe out for one count
2. Breathe in for two counts… hold your breath for two counts… breathe out for two counts
3. Breathe in for three counts… hold your breath for three counts… breathe out for three counts
4. Breathe in for four counts… hold your breath for four counts… breathe out for four counts
5. Breathe in for five counts… hold your breath for five counts… breathe out for five counts

Why this works

1-2-3-4-5-BREATHE works for three reasons. First, it hones your child’s ability to correctly identify an emotion and consciously attempt to manage it in a positive way. This alone, is super powerful.

Secondly, when we slow our breath, we trick our system into thinking the source of danger has passed. Anxiety is basically a manifestation of the fight/flight response. We feel like we’re in danger (even if we are not) and are getting ready to fight or flee, hence the speedy heart beat and shallow breathing, both of which are all about getting oxygen to the muscles. Imagine you are out of danger… what do you do? You sigh. By over-riding anxious rapid and shallow breathing, you are letting your body know there is nothing to be afraid of. Finally, children doing 1-2-3-4-5-BREATHE will have to concentrate just a little bit, to get the counting right and remember to inhale, exhale or hold the breath at the right time. This will help them come out of any negative thought loops and also will move them out of that base urge to run or flee because they are engaging their thinking brain in a positive way.

How this applies to food

If your child is a really anxious eater, you may even want to help them use 1-2-3-4-5-BREATHE during meals, if something has made them feel panicky and worried. If you support them in using it in life more generally, this gives them the skills to recognise and manage their emotions AND helps them feel confident in their own ability to power through difficult feelings. Managing anxiety (and other negative emotions) is a life skill that we are ALL working on, to varying degrees. As a parent, you can gradually add to your child’s tool box over time, giving them skills which will last as lifetime.