 |
| Before: Being silly in Warrior 3. |
"Do something relaxing to me, mama," she said.
This means she wants me to do some therapeutic yoga techniques (basically I do yoga to her, instead of her doing it herself) which also sometimes includes massage and accu-pressure. I agreed and began by "grounding" her. Grounding is an important technique for relaxing children or any person who is overly stimulated and/or not able to process normal sensory input. Learning to ground myself changed my life and I hope that exposing her to it early will change the quality of her life as well.
Grounding is a really simple idea. Its about getting into your roots. Some simple things, like massaging your back body against the floor (visual: think of dog enjoying rubbing its back on the grass) or putting weight on your front body while you lie back, can be enough to calm the nervous system. These things take the focus away from your front body and all the sense organs and allow you to sink away from the source of over stimulation.
Now, those are great techniques, but I like to use my super yogi mom knowledge to take grounding to a whole new level for my baby, so:
1. I lay her down in a savasana position on her back, smoothing and pulling down her back body and stretching out her limbs.
2. I stand on her. Yes, you heard me right. (I'm careful.)
I found out many moons ago in my yoga teacher training that if a person carefully places their heels in the center of the crescent of your groins and then places their palms on your shoulder joints, the weight of their body is evenly distributed right into your joints that most need grounding (the hips and shoulders). If the person is in savasana properly and the placement of the hands and feet is done properly and slowly, the effects of this procedure are miraculous. I'm not kidding. Not even a little bit.
3. I breathe with her. This is a valuable tool. I breathe slowly and diaphramatically with great awareness and through our touch and energy sharing, she begins to follow into the same pattern of breathing with me. My lovely daughter is usually phenomenal at this, but.....
On this particular day, she was reverse breathing (gasp!)....which was I'm sure adding to or causing the agitation. Reverse breathing is a breathing pattern where you are breathing the 180 degree opposite of how you were designed to take in oxygen. (Its a lot like a gasp, actually. Catch my keen play on words?)
During reverse breathing, your belly sucks in and you pushes all of the air into your chest and upper respiratory muscles that aren't designed to engage in that way. The result is agitation from not breathing into your pelvic floor and abdominal region (your roots -- think grounding!) and tightening of the chest and secondary respiratory muscles that aren't designed to work as primary muscles.
She was giggling and nervous as she struggled to join me in diaphragmatic breathing. It took much longer than normal, but I stayed there, hands on her, firm and insistent in the energy I was sharing with her and finally, she broke the pattern. I felt her body immediately release to the ground in a significant way when she was able to break the pattern. I could see and feel her relief and the relaxation was palpable. That's when I had two thoughts.
1. "Whew."
2. "Boy, I bet this could help a lot of parents, especially those with kids who might have special sensory needs. I better blog about this."
Namaste~
Tammie
This means she wants me to do some therapeutic yoga techniques (basically I do yoga to her, instead of her doing it herself) which also sometimes includes massage and accu-pressure. I agreed and began by "grounding" her. Grounding is an important technique for relaxing children or any person who is overly stimulated and/or not able to process normal sensory input. Learning to ground myself changed my life and I hope that exposing her to it early will change the quality of her life as well.
Grounding is a really simple idea. Its about getting into your roots. Some simple things, like massaging your back body against the floor (visual: think of dog enjoying rubbing its back on the grass) or putting weight on your front body while you lie back, can be enough to calm the nervous system. These things take the focus away from your front body and all the sense organs and allow you to sink away from the source of over stimulation.
Now, those are great techniques, but I like to use my super yogi mom knowledge to take grounding to a whole new level for my baby, so:
1. I lay her down in a savasana position on her back, smoothing and pulling down her back body and stretching out her limbs.
2. I stand on her. Yes, you heard me right. (I'm careful.)
I found out many moons ago in my yoga teacher training that if a person carefully places their heels in the center of the crescent of your groins and then places their palms on your shoulder joints, the weight of their body is evenly distributed right into your joints that most need grounding (the hips and shoulders). If the person is in savasana properly and the placement of the hands and feet is done properly and slowly, the effects of this procedure are miraculous. I'm not kidding. Not even a little bit.
3. I breathe with her. This is a valuable tool. I breathe slowly and diaphramatically with great awareness and through our touch and energy sharing, she begins to follow into the same pattern of breathing with me. My lovely daughter is usually phenomenal at this, but.....
On this particular day, she was reverse breathing (gasp!)....which was I'm sure adding to or causing the agitation. Reverse breathing is a breathing pattern where you are breathing the 180 degree opposite of how you were designed to take in oxygen. (Its a lot like a gasp, actually. Catch my keen play on words?)
During reverse breathing, your belly sucks in and you pushes all of the air into your chest and upper respiratory muscles that aren't designed to engage in that way. The result is agitation from not breathing into your pelvic floor and abdominal region (your roots -- think grounding!) and tightening of the chest and secondary respiratory muscles that aren't designed to work as primary muscles.
She was giggling and nervous as she struggled to join me in diaphragmatic breathing. It took much longer than normal, but I stayed there, hands on her, firm and insistent in the energy I was sharing with her and finally, she broke the pattern. I felt her body immediately release to the ground in a significant way when she was able to break the pattern. I could see and feel her relief and the relaxation was palpable. That's when I had two thoughts.
1. "Whew."
2. "Boy, I bet this could help a lot of parents, especially those with kids who might have special sensory needs. I better blog about this."
Namaste~
Tammie
 |
| AAAAHHHH....after some grounding. |
No comments:
Post a Comment