It’s one of the first things parents and teachers tell a child who gets upset: “Take a deep breath.” But research into the effect of deep breathing on the body’s stress response has overwhelmingly ignored young children – and studies done with adults typically take place in a university lab, making them even less applicable to children’s actual lives.
A new study by Stanford researchers is the first to show that taking just a few slow, deep breaths significantly reduces young children’s physiological arousal. By measuring the effects in naturalistic settings such as day camps and playgrounds, the study is also groundbreaking for its design, which more closely reflects a child’s experience than a study in a lab would. [Read more…] about Study: A few slow-paced breaths are enough to significantly reduce physiological stress
