Deep Breathing Exercise Cards Deal

Description

Take all the benefits of deep breathing exercises and add fun themes!

These deep breathing exercise cards are printable cards designed to help children with coping skills, self-regulation, mindfulness, attention, worries, frustration, and mindset.

Print out the deep breathing cards.

Laminate and use over and over again in therapy sessions, as part of a home program, or in brain breaks during learning.

This set of deep breathing exercises includes both  AND playing card sized versions:

• Use the keychain sized cards that can be added to a ring and used in sensory diets while on the go or in learning environments.
• Use the playing card size cards in games, sensory diets, therapy programming, or as a flip and play game.

The set includes 113 different deep breathing exercises in the keychain-size cards and 113 playing card sized exercises. (113 total breathing exercises)

Deep breathing exercise themes include:

• Foods and Drinks
• Wind and Air
• Sound
• Nature
• Animals and Insects
• Oral Motor Exercises
• Transportation Vehicles
• Shapes and Colors
• Alphabet

Cards are designed to teach children deep breathing strategies that can be used as coping mechanisms even when they don’t have the cards with them. The various themes include colorful and fun images that spark recognition so that the deep breathing exercises will stick with them.

• The Oral Motor Exercises can be done anytime, using just the mouth. These strategies offer exceptional proprioceptive input through the lips, tongue, and cheeks, making a calming heavy work activity that can be used in sensory diets to help children achieve a calm and ready state of regulation.

• The Shapes and Colors deep breathing exercises use the hands, making these deep breathing exercises a strategy that kids can use anytime, even when they don’t have the cards with them. Children can trace the shapes on the palm of their hands, adding a kinesthetic and tactile component to the coping strategy.

Deep breathing exercises are a strategy for self-regulation, coping, and mindfulness. Deep breath exercises can also help children  feel calmer so they can focus. Concentrated breathing is an effective strategy to help kids achieve a calm-alert state so they can prepare for a challenge or new activity. Breath control uses conscious breathing, or an awareness of using deep breaths as a strategy for regulation. Engaging the diaphragm for full, “belly breaths” allow for controlled breathing and is helpful in allowing children to reach a calm and alert state so they can attend, focus, and perform functional tasks.

Breathing exercises have been shown to activate the parasympathetic nervous system which tones down the bodies fight or flight response to stress.  Deep breathing, mindful breathing, and deep breathing exercises are tools to help to achieve this state of regulation.

Children benefit from visual analogies that show them how to take deep breaths in and mindfully become more aware of how their body responds to controlled breaths. The cards in this resource can be used as visual tools to promote a calm-alert state.

The beauty of breathing exercises is that you can breathe anywhere! No special equipment or apparatus needed. With practice and encouragement children can incorporate these simple exercises into their everyday lives e.g. before they do homework, before an event they perceive as stressful, before bedtime. As adults we can model the use of breathing exercises and reap the rewards from them as well.