Children’s Mental Health Week

“It means no worries…”

Hello everyone,

As you may well know we start each day after our fiddly fingers with a yoga session.  Among many other amazing benefits yoga can offer us such as developing our strength and flexibility and improving our concentration and memory, yoga also happens to be a great way to help us manage our anxiety.  Yoga helps to improve a child’s emotional regulation, helps boost self esteem and increases their body awareness and mindfulness.

This week we have been focusing on poses which will help us should we happen to experience anxiety, here are some of the moves we have been doing.

Tree pose

Tree pose helps with our mind body awareness.  When we are in this pose we have to focus, thus helping us to take our minds off any worries or anxiety we may have.  We grow our tree up big and strong, spread our branches wide and we say “we are strong” just like our tree! We are great at balancing now too!

Childs pose

We sometimes pretend we are mice and do a little squeak when we are in this pose.  It helps soothe our mind and relax our body.

Downward Dog

We do a little woof, woof and wag our tail (our bottoms) when we are in this pose, it helps release tension in our necks and backs.

Happy Baby

We have so much fun in this pose, rocking slowly from side to side this gives us a nice gentle back massage and helps calm our minds. Sometimes we sing ‘Rock-a-bye-baby’ when we do this pose!!

Ragdoll

Our ragdoll pose releases the back and calms the brain, we sway our arms slowly from side to side and relax our head.

Other poses that help with anxiety which we have been practicing this week are, cat/cow, resting pose and easy pose (sitting with legs crossed).  Why don’t you ask your child to show you these poses, perhaps you can do them together? They are getting really good at them now!!

Breathing

We always begin and finish our yoga with mindful breathing, this week we have been doing slow, deep breathing perfect for a child suffering from anxiety.  It is good to teach them deep breathing exercises whilst they are calm so that if they do start to experience anxiety they will already have the tools available to them to help self-regulate.  For example, a slow breathing exercise the children really love is hot cocoa breath.  Please see the link below or ask your child to show you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAshxsYSjFU

Activities

Simple activities such as mindful colouring, threading beads onto string or maybe making a breathing stick by tying a feather to the end of a stick, the children love making the feather move with their breath!

Books

A great book to read is Ruby’s Worry by Tom Percival, read it together or watch it on You Tube on the link below, this can open up a conversation to discuss any worries or anxiety your child may have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCyiiHI2SJU

Get Out and About

Take a walk outside whatever the weather!!  There is absolutely nothing better than spending time in nature, it’s the perfect activity for getting rid of anxiety, the benefits are immeasurable and as the saying goes “there is no such thing as bad weather just inappropriate clothing”!