Parent and Child Benefits of Buzzing Bee Breath!
Updated: May 20, 2020
It is World Bee day! What better day to explore the benefits of our Children Inspired Bee pose.
Buzzing bee breath is a yoga breath called ‘brahmari’ from the Sanskrit for a humming black bee. Bee breathing will give you the chance to focus on your breathing and help you to relax.
Bee Breath pose
For Parents and Carers
Find a comfortable place to sit and focus on relaxing your shoulders. An effective way to do this is to imagine you are increasing the distance between your ears and your shoulders. Let your shoulders move downwards and slightly backwards but be careful not to force this movement. Breathe normally and close your eyes.
Keeping your lips lightly sealed, breathe in through your nose, then breathe out making the sound of the letter ‘M’ (a humming sound), until you start to feel the need to breathe in again. Keep in your comfort zone, so do not breathe out for too long forcing you breath out beyond your capacity can have the reverse effect, causing even more stress.
To make the sound feel more ‘intense’ put your hands over your ears whilst you do the hums.
After a few bee breaths, sit quietly and reflect, do your notice change in your mood – hopefully you should be feeling calmer!
For your Child
Now encourage your child to ‘buzz’ along with you!
Guide your child to sit opposite you so they can see what to do. Together take a deep breath in, ideally through your noses, then to make a buzzing sound like a bee as you breathe out for a few seconds - ‘bzzzz!’ Remember to let your child find the breath pattern that is best for them, they should not breathe out beyond their comfort level.
Once your child is confident with buzzing, they can have a go at placing their hands over their ears as they buzz! Often children love this feeling.
Remind your child not to do more than 3 bee breaths in a row, otherwise they may feel dizzy!
Benefits of bee breath pose
De- Stress
Research highlights the powerful effect of a child’s cry on most adults, regardless of whether they look after children or not.
The team highlighted the link between an expectant father's hormonal response to a crying child and how they reacted. They found that some men, who had naturally higher levels of testosterone, with strong responses of cortisol, may find it harder to empathise with a crying child. Of course these hormonal differences do not make anyone a 'poorer' parent, but being aware of their impact could help some fathers (and mothers) manage their responses in this situation i.e. understanding that they themselves may benefit from some extra time, or anything else that can help lower the stress. Bee pose is a great stress reliever for both parent and child.
By taking slow breaths in bee pose, your child will be also be encouraged to slow their breathing. As a direct result of taking slower breaths your heart rates will automatically decrease and this will lead to in an increased feeling of calmness between you and your child.
Increase focus and concentration
Breathing exercises, such as buzzing bee breath, enable both you and your child to clear your minds and so improve focus, memory and concentration. Doing this pose can be especially useful before doing tasks requiring reading practice, homework or even an exam.
Bee Relax for All Ages
After doing Bee pose with your child, lie down together and listen to the Tatty Bumpkin Bee song.
Bee breath variations
If your child is older they can try ‘bee hums’ with their eyes shut and their hands over their ears. Does the buzzing seem louder like this?
If your child is younger, you may need to guide their hands over their ears until they get the idea, then step back and see if they can do the activity by themselves. Do stop your child from doing more than 3 breaths in a row otherwise they may make themselves dizzy.
Try doing louder, softer, higher, lower ‘bee hums’ together. Try humming along to a favourite songs or rhyme. This is a great exercise for your child’s vocal chords and speech muscles.
You can also try bee pose in lying or standing.
Be apart together
Movement with a yoga twist is so good for mental and physical wellbeing. Many of our franchisees are offering live streamed, or recorded, sessions. Find out about classes running in your local area at https://www.beaparttogether.com/virtual-classes
