What does ‘Cardiac Coherence’ have to do with helping kids?
It sounds fancy, but the technique and theory behind it are actually quite simple and effective.
Cardiac Coherence, a term coined by the Institute of HeartMath, simply means a state that occurs once our breathing rate and heart rate are synchronized and no longer erratic or fluctuating all over the place. It’s when you learn how to make your breathing and heart rates more ‘coherent’ or rhythmic and less sporadic.
To assist with this coherence, while tapping into the intelligence of the heart, our children can be encouraged to breathe while also focusing on positive emotions like appreciation, gratitude, or while using positive self-talk such as “even though I’m worried, I’m okay.”
What are the benefits?
If your child learns how to make their heart rate more rhythmic by being able to slow their breath down, they will also be able to increase their ability to:
- Stay calmer – Because their ‘rest and restore’ system will be activated instead of their ‘fight/flight’ system.
- Think more clearly – Because their brains are not being flooded with stress hormones,
- Feel less stressed, and
- Begin to believe they can handle more – Because they don’t get as nervous anymore.
In fact, a lack of cardiac coherence is one of the biggest factors in feeling anxious or chronically stressed. Quite often we are unaware of how little or how fast we are breathing. When we feel tense, worried, or stressed, our ability to breathe deeply and slowly (which helps us to relax) becomes difficult. Breathing slowly (and research supports this) can help us to relax even if we are still in a stressful situation.
Another way of thinking about this is “by paying attention to our breathing and slowing it down, we can “trick” our bodies into feeling calmer.”
Slow your breath down to increase your sense of calm as a family!
As a parent, you can easily teach this skill to your children!
But first, let me provide a bit more information on what I am talking about. Then I will share a technique that you can use to teach this skill.
If, however, you’re not interested in the more technical information behind this strategy, then skip on down to the heading “So how can I teach this invaluable stress reducing technique to my kids?”
Now, for the more technical information on this technique.
Breathing coherence allows you to handle and bounce back from difficult situations more easily, thus increasing your overall resilience. Through practice, you can train your body to have a slower resting rate, which means, your body will naturally begin to breathe more slowly more often throughout the day, even when you not consciously trying to; thus reducing your overall stress and tension. By breathing more slowly, you are engaging the “rest and restore” system (the parasympathetic nervous system) instead of the flight-flight or “get prepared” stress system (the sympathetic nervous system).
By breathing slowly, you are also allowing your “thinking brain” (the prefrontal cortex, which is near the front of our heads) to work instead of our very old and primitive “reactionary brains” (the amygdala, hypothalamus, cingulate gyrus, and brain stem, all mostly in the area near the back and bottom of our heads). Both systems and brain areas are useful, but only when used at the right times.
For example, when we are in true danger, like when a car is approaching us or someone is chasing us, the preparation system is useful as it helps us to breathe in lots of air quickly and to release necessary hormonal chemicals – which helps to set off a chain reaction of fast air circulation, increased oxygen in our blood system, ready to move muscles, eyes that can focus on danger signs (like that rock up ahead that we might trip on while running), and ears that can hear even really quiet sounds that may alert us to further danger. When the preparation system is working, we are no longer thinking about all the different ways we could solve the current problem. Instead, the purpose of the preparation system is to get us to react and to react quickly, in order to save us. When that car has lost control and is approaching us, we don’t want to stand there thinking of ways to save ourselves, we just want to react and jump out of the way.
However, when we just “think” we are in danger, like when a friend makes fun of us, when we are embarrassed, or we are worried that we will perform poorly during a speech and be judged negatively, we don’t want to just “react” to the situation (like telling our friend to “shut up,” running away, or cancelling the speech), we want to “respond” to the situation (which might look like us saying to our friend “that is not a nice thing to say, if you can’t be nice right now, then we can play/hang out later when you can”).
So, to keep our thinking brains on board, which can’t work if they are flooded with stress hormones (for example, Cortisol), we need to purposely breathe slow and deep. This will ‘”trick” or guide our bodies into relaxing and slowing down the intake and circulation of oxygen (which if fast, causes hyperventilation and anxiety) and the rate our heart beats. According to the Institute of Hearth Math, generating positive emotions, such as gratitude, while focusing on breathing slower will help improve cardiac coherence greatly. So, in short, its “breathe slow and think and feel positively.”
So how can I teach this invaluable stress reducing technique to my kids?
I have taught slow breathing to children and adults using a technique known as ‘Square Breathing’ (Reference of name unknown. If you are aware of the reference, please let me know and I will reference accordingly). Square Breathing essentially means breathing in and out at the same rate.
To explain this to your children, you can use the following script:
“Ok, now we are going to learn how to trick our bodies into feeling more calm by breathing slow. We breathe fast when we feel worried or scared, and then we can’t think clearly right? So if you want to think clearly, you need to learn how to breathe slowly. Slow equals calm. Fast equals feeling worried or scared.”
“So let’s practice breathing in slowly. I’m going to count to four with my fingers and we have to keep breathing in slowly until I count all the way to four. Then we have to hold our breath until I count to four again. Don’t let the breath get away; keep it inside of you until it has time to dance all around inside your body. Then we are going to breathe out slowly for another count of four. Again, remember to not breathe out fast, because that will scare the breath. When all the air is out of your body, don’t take in any more air until I count to four again. If you breathe more air in before I count to four, it will be too much for your body and that will make you start to feel worried again. Okay, ready?
“Breathe in sloooooowwwwly, 1…2…3…4. Hold it in, don’t let it out…1…2…3…4. Let it out slowly until I count to four, don’t scare it by pushing it out too fast…1…2…3…4. Good Job! Now keep the air all out until I count to four…1…2…3…4. Good. “
“In…1…2…3…4. Hold it…1…2…3…4. Out…1…2…3…4. Wait, stay empty…1…2…3…4…etc”
Something to keep in mind when using this strategy with children, especially young children (i.e., 4-6 years), is that children will usually be giggling and squirming around while doing this. This is just fine! It’s how young children learn – through play! Don’t worry about a perfect performance or that your child appears to be goofing around. If they are having fun and still paying attention and trying, they are learning. It’s the “practice while they don’t need it” that will matter. It will be much harder to teach this in the moment of stress or anxiety.
After providing this training, I have personally witnessed children as young as four years old say something similar to (while placing their hands on their chest/heart) “I need to calm down and breathe slow. I can be calm.”
Slightly older children will usually squirm less, but may still giggle and appear shy or embarrassed while practising. The best thing to do in this case is to do the activity with them, not just ‘to them.’ This means actually sitting or lying down beside them and breathing slowly as well. This would apply to pre-adolescents and teens as well.
To make it even easier for children and teens (even adults) to see what is happening, I also often put one hand on my chest, just below the collarbone, and one hand on my belly. I then show them that when I am breathing deeply, it’s my hand on the belly that moves up and down and not my hand on my chest. This is very important as when we are feeling worried or stressed, we tend to breathe into our chest, which is often fast and shallow (meaning less air gets in) and causes hyperventilation and anxiety. It’s also the body’s way of “keeping small” and not showing too many signs, kind of like, “I’m scared. I better not move too much or I might get noticed.”
For older children, teens, and adults, a neat little app (there is also an associated program you can use from your computer) that can be used to assist with learning how to breathe slowly is called the “My Calm Beat” by My Brain Solutions.
Although you can buy the heart monitor (which would allow you to track your breathing rate and graph your progress) to use with the free app, you can also use the free app on its own to just practice your breathing.
The My Calm Beat app has an image of two lungs, which visually fill up with air while breathing in and empty out the air while breathing out.
There is also a tone or bell that sounds when it’s time to breathe in or out. This app allows you to set your own breathing rate (how many breaths/minute you want to aim for, try for 5-7 breaths/minute) and the length of time you want to practice for (i.e., 10 minutes/day). When first using this app, set it at a rate that is slower than what you normally breathe at but at a rate that is still comfortable for you or your child.
Another tool you can use is a video available from Zenetcie. You can view this video by clicking the image link below:
Once your child or teen is able to comfortably breathe more slowly, and has practised breathing slower for a while, their body will begin to relax overall and release more tension; thus increasing their overall resilience.
Now, for the discussion point…
Have you practiced slow controlled breathing? What is your experience with using similar exercises above? Have you tried to teach your kids a similar strategy? How did they respond to it? Any points of frustration?
For those parents that are interested in the actual research, here is a link to a research article from the Institute of HeartMath.
http://www.heartmathbenelux.com/doc/Cardiaccoherence.pdf
Nurturing Resilient Children 