Kids and Teens Part 4

Welcome to Week 4

You are making fantastic progress! This is your final week of daily practice. 

You can begin level 7 and 8 when you can pause for 30 seconds. Remember to do your nose clearing exercises first, if you need to. If both nostrils are clear you can begin without.

You may want to look up and look down as you breathe in and out and slow your breathing down before you begin, by looking up as you breathe in for 4 and out as you look down for 6 and repeat 10x.

Level 7

To complete level 7 you will need to be able to pause for 35 seconds at the end of your outbreath, and return to slow, quiet nose breathing, into your tummy immediately after you let go of your nose.

See if you can overcome the anxiety monster in level 7 by pausing for up to 35 seconds.

Level 8

To complete level 8 you can pause for up to 40 seconds, but no longer than a minute, maximum. There is no benefit to pausing longer than a minute.

To maintain your breathing behaviour you can keep practising level 8 each day beyond the end of the course.

There will be times when you can’t breathe or pause as easily. In those times remember your rescue breathing.

With the breath pauses, it isn’t always the length of pause that is important, it is the amount of softening and relaxation you can allow in your body that makes the difference.

As with everything, the more you practice the easier it becomes and if you keep up some weekly practice after you have finished the course, you will maintain your progress.

Steps Exercise

Keep practising your steps exercise daily. How many steps can you take in the pause? Because we can walk more than one step every second, some people have managed to get up to 60 to 80 steps in the pause. Remember to relax with two recovery breaths, drop your shoulders after your pause and breathe down into your belly first.

If you want to experiment and build up gradually, some people can even run with nose breathing. You might want to start with breathing in through the nose, then out through the mouth. Build up your exercise level and intensity at a pace that is comfortable for your breathing. Don’t make yourself out of breath. Pace yourself. It will increase in time.

You can even practice nose breathing with cycling. How many pedal turns can you do in the pause? Then take a couple of minutes rest before you try again.

Remember to stop and regain your nose breathing any time you get out of breath.

Mouth Taping

You can continue to tape your mouth at night, cutting a slit in the tape. Remember not to do this when you feel sick or if you have sleeping tablets or if an adult – no alcohol. 

Remember you can tape any time after you have completed the course. It can be particularly helpful with a head cold, if you can get your nose to clear first. It then helps you nose breathe during the night and you are less likely to develop a cough or wheeze from over-breathing.

You might find it easier to sleep on your left side.

Also any time you feel stressed, you can tape. When we big breathe at night the subconscious comes out to play and we can have more nightmares and bad dreams. Taping and keeping your breathing slow and steady can help to keep your body relaxed and settled. You can wake feeling more refreshed and rested.

Daily Practice

Remember to practice level 7 and 8 at least 2 or 3 times a day. You have completed level 8 when you can keep pausing for 40 seconds for at least a couple of the pauses. Remember to check your results in the mini dashboard.

For best results with your pause length, remember to practice before a meal or one or two hours after eating.

It’s not the End….Just the Beginning

You can continue this beyond the end of the course…especially if you are going through a stressful time, you are more likely to do big breathing at night. This can also mean more nightmares, so for a more peaceful nights sleep and to wake feeling more refreshed, keep your tape handy.

You can come back to any of the levels for a reminder any time you need.

You will find all the chapters of Billy’s Adventure below without the timing too, incase you want to just play them through and see how you do.

How are you feeling so far after all your practice?

Is there anything you can do or would like to do now, you can breathe more easily?….What is your adventure going to be?

See how you can focus this week on really reducing the volume of your breathing, so relaxing into the feeling of air hunger as you can try small volume breathing too, as long as you can relax with it.

Keep up the good practice….and well done for getting to the final week.