Yoga for Calming Kids ~ Create Your Own Calm

The wonderful Becky who created the book Create your Own Happiness that we reviewed and created a robot from with junk is back today to share her new book with you. It’s a fantastic book that features ideas and activities for kids to help them keep calm and relax and is especially useful at this time of year as the kids head back to school. So here you go I’m handing over to Becky to share with you an activity from her book Create your Own Calm.

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This is an extract from Create Your own Calm – an activity book for 6-12 years olds written by Becky Goddard-Hill and published this week by Harper Collins.

It contains 50 activities, all backed by science, to support kids with their big feelings and help them develop strategies to feel calmer.

The following activity is probably best done with a grown up the first few times.

More books by Becky featured here on Rainy Day Mum – 365 Days of Wellbeing books, Nature Crafts for Kids, Create your Own Kindness, Create your Own Confidence and Create your Own Happiness.

Yoga With Kids

“You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.” Wayne Dyer – motivational speaker

Yoga works out your body and mind and can bring you a great deal of peace. It has been practised for thousands of years.

Yoga trains your mind and body to be calm so that when your life is difficult you can soothe yourself. Just the simple practice of breathing makes a huge difference to helping your mind and body relax. Yoga is as much about your breathing as it is about physical movement and  poses. 

The Science Behind why Yoga is Good for Kids

You  have a nervous system that connects your brain to your body and sends lots of messages rushing between the two.

In part of your nervous system you have 2 branches that can act without you really thinking. 

One branch is called the sympathetic nervous system. This increases your heart rate, blood pressure, stress levels, and tension in your muscles. 

Another branch is called  the parasympathetic nervous system and it does exactly the opposite. It helps you relax. It lowers your heart rate, blood pressure, cortisol (stress) levels, and muscle tension. Yoga poses can help settle the sympathetic nervous system  (the one that can make you feel stressed) Completely releasing all muscular tension is one of the best ways to calm your nervous system, which is one of the reasons Yoga is so healing.

Check out these other ideas for mindfulness for kids that are great to do alongside the calming activities in this book!

The Child Pose

Yoga teacher Donna Navarro shares a simple yoga exercise called Child’s Pose or Balasana (bah-LAHS-uh-nuh) 

The child’s pose helps you feel calm, rested and stable and is a wonderful yoga pose to do if these are the feelings you want to have. It can really help you sleep too.

Balasana

Begin on all fours. 

Bring your knees wider and your big toes together. 

Bring your bottom back to sit on you heels and as you breathe out, lengthen forward to bring your forehead to the floor. 

Lengthen your arms out in front of you resting them along the floor. If your head doesn’t reach the floor, rest your  head on a pillow.

As you breathe in, feel the top of your back expand and as you breathe out feel your ribs draw closer together. 

Focusing on feeling your breath and how it moves your body will help to still your  mind and calm your  nervous system. 

Do this once for 1-3 minutes. 

Create your own calm – by practising a little yoga on a regular basis

Did you know you can combine yoga and reading especially with your little ones? Check out this Yoga Story for a fantastic start and helping your kids create their own calm at home.

Create your Own Calm by Becky Goddard-Hill

Becky’s Book Create your Own Calm: Activities to overcome children’s worries, anxiety and anger is available from Amazon to purchase for your child.

You can find more activities shared on other sites below