September, 14 -18, Week Recap

This week at Mark Twain School, we talked about the importance of breathing.

Sometimes we forget how important it is to breathe. Breathing is not only an automatic reflex that helps us survive, but it also affects our entire body and mental state. When we are anxious, fearful, or stressed, our heart races, our muscles tense up, and our breathing becomes faster and shallow. If we control the way we breathe by taking long slow breaths, we send a signal to our body that things are OK, and consequently, our heart starts to slow down, our muscles relax, and we feel better and think more clearly. Learning how to slow down our breathing can be very helpful when we have to take a test in school or we are faced with challenges.

With some of the students, we drew leaves to gain awareness of our breathing. By starting from the stem, we started to inhale until we arrived at the top of the leaf, and then exhale while reconnecting the other side of the leaf to the stem. Some of us colored our leaves. Once we collect them all, we will make our own "Breathing Tree".

A video was shared with the high school students, which shows a technique (4-7-8) on how to take those effective breaths, but there are many more good videos out of there.

Just remember to breathe, especially when you feel anxious, stressed, or scared.