Hot Chocolate Breathing
Your heart is racing. Panic is beginning to set in. You know it’s your anxiety flaring up again for the thousandth time, but that rational thought doesn’t seem to curb the emotion that you know is coming. Anxiety is about to hit you, so what can you do?
Maybe you’ve heard that breathing is one coping skill that helps in this situation. It is true that breathing is a powerful antidote to anxiety, but it has to be done in a particular way to be effective. Shallow, short breaths will actually make your anxiety worse. That’s because your anxiety is stimulating your sympathetic nervous system. Breathing deeply from your diaphragm or stomach muscles is the key. Diaphragmatic breathing is slow, deep breathing that helps your vagus nerve switch you from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system and aids in calming you down. A simple way to be sure you are breathing in a calming manner is “hot chocolate breathing.”
Whether you have a cup of hot chocolate in front of you or you imagine yourself holding one - the process is the same…
Hold the mug close to your face and slowly inhale the delicious scent of the chocolate. Maybe you can even smell the whip cream or peppermint that you have added to your hot chocolate. Breathe it all in. Take a moment as you smell deeply and enjoy the aroma. Ahhh. Now you need to cool your hot chocolate before you drink it - so slowly blow into your mug. Feel your breath as you slowly exhale. Then take another long and deep smell of the chocolate (about 4 seconds), and then blow on your warm cocoa again. Repeat several more times.
As you did the hot chocolate breathing, you would have felt your heart rate lower and your body calm. The deep breaths will have helped you to relax and blow out some of the stress collecting in your heart, mind, and body.
Now that you have felt the impact of hot chocolate breathing for yourself, make a mug for the little ones and teens in your life. This is a great sensory activity to teach them how to slow their breathing and calm their own stress. They can continue to use this experience to simply imagine that they are holding the warm mug and use the techniques they learned to lower their anxiety in other situations. Just remember, deeply inhale the smell of the hot chocolate, then slowly blow and cool your chocolate. Relax and enjoy drinking your cooled cocoa with the ones you love.
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