Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast, the bucket-emptying episodes. I'm your host, Dr. Mary Han, psychologist and parenting expert. And these shorter episodes are all about tackling topical subjects in bite-sized chunks or sharing top tips to relieve your overwhelm or your child's because time is super precious. And today's episode, get ready to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation, is a top tip to relieve your child's overwhelm in a moment whilst also your own. And it's a really practical go-to tool that literally takes 30 seconds that will be life-changing. I cannot overestimate, genuinely, what it will be able to do for you. And we're calling it the 30-second reset, but we'll talk a little bit more about other names that you could call it. So just for a moment, just answer this question in your head, maybe even out loud, maybe have a chuckle. Have you ever told your child to just calm down? Yeah. And then instantly realize that you've made it worse, like dramatically worse. It's actually quite amazing how two words, total chaos. It's almost like pouring petrol on a flame and you just see it go, whoosh. And so often I would say about this, when we do find ourselves asking our children to calm down, it's often out of our mouth before we've realized it because we know practically, we've seen it often enough that it doesn't work, but we just find ourselves sort of like, I don't know what else to do. And so we end up saying that. So today I want to give you something, a really simple tool that works. Faster than any logic that we might want to put in place at the time, faster than acknowledging the emotion, faster than dealing with consequences. And it's definitely faster than maybe whispering, use your kind voice through clenched teeth. And as I say, it just takes 30 seconds. So just picture this scenario. It may well be your lived experience today or yesterday or something like this. So it's 8.07am and you've got a child who can't find their shoes. You've got another child who suddenly hates their socks or their tights. And one child who has decided quite firmly that school is cancelled forever. They're overwhelmed, but let's face it, if we're honest in that moment, so are we. And what I have found as I've reflected on many of those moments myself with my own family, is that actually when our children are in school, they're not going to be in that full and utter meltdown mode. We're not really dealing with behaviour. Just bear with me for a second. We're not dealing with behaviour, but instead we're dealing with a nervous system that thinks it's under threat. Yep. So just imagine when I'm in overwhelm, even you as an adult or our children are in overwhelm, our fight or flight, our sympathetic nervous system is kicked in. And so actually we're not really dealing with a situation where our child's, you know, by tackling the behaviour, we're going to make a change. But actually instead, if we can shift our focus away from what can I do in that moment that's going to change my child's behaviour from take them away from that tantrum, from that saying unkind things and throwing themselves around, or that utter paralysis from fear, from anxiety or overwhelm. Instead of really trying to speak to the behaviour, which in essence asks us to use our children's logical brain, which has been switched off at this point, we're going to use our children's logical brain, which has been switched off at this moment. Instead, if we shift it to our emphasis being, okay, their nervous system has kicked in because for whatever reasons, they believe that they are under threat. They are being sieged by that saber-toothed tiger from Ice Age, El Diego. And so actually there's no rationality. If instead we think, why don't I respond to the physiology and speak to the physiological response? And then once that sympathetic nervous system, has restored itself to the parasympathetic, then we can use logic. We can deal with the behaviour. And the technique that I'm going to explain to you, I'm going to talk to you about is called the physiological sigh. And there's been quite a bit on this. If you're an avid fan of podcasts, as you know, I am beyond my own, then you will see that there's been a lot about this in some sort of adult podcasts in terms of high performance, in terms of focus, in terms of overwhelm from an adult perspective. So this particular technique, which I'm going to talk to you about, is called the well-researched and works. So what we're looking at doing now is translating this into something that our children can use as a tool that is something that they go to. Now, what we know is, and you might not realise, that our children are already using the mechanisms of this physiological sigh. So if you imagine, you know, when our children get really, really upset and they're crying, they're in that real upset, teary, and they're just doing all of this sort of thing. The physiological sigh involves an intake of breath. And then just when we feel that the lung is full, we take another one. And our children do that when they cry. So if you haven't noticed it, I, when I first read about this a while ago, I was sort of rattling my brains with it, but actually it is absolutely true. So what we're going to do is that's something that they do automatically and actually quite naturally when they are upset, because it's an, it's almost like an innate way of their body when they're upset, kicking in to help them deal with that particular emotion. What we're doing when we think about the physiological sigh or the 30 second reset, we're looking at helping our children use that intentionally rather than waiting for their body to do it on their own. So it's genuinely, it is ridiculously simple. You breathe in through your nose, and then you take a second smaller inhale, at the top, and then you let go slowly through your mouth. That's it. So sniff, sniff, long sniff out. So let's do it. If you're listening, come on, try it with me now. So sniff. So you see, we're taking that sniff and we're taking that breath in, and then just a very short second one. It's the short second inhale that is the swallowing of the lung. So you're taking that breath in, and then just a very short second one. So you see, we're taking that sniff and we're taking that breath in, and then just a very short sweet spot. That reopens the tiny air sacs in the lungs. And then the long exhale, that's what tells your brain it's safe. And the research is super, super clear. Within one or two of those breaths, your child's heart rate starts to drop. So they need to do it between one and three times. Depends on the situation, depends on your child, but that is all that it takes. Genuinely, it feels a little too simple to be true, but it is. It's one of the fastest ways to calm the stress response, and we can play around with what we call it. So I've called it the 30 second reset, but you could choose, because let's face it, when we're going to encourage our children to use this, it will be different for different children and for different reasons. So you're listening to this maybe because you've got a child who goes from zero to explosion in a nanosecond. Maybe you're listening to this because you've got a child who over worries about things. Maybe you've got a child who tends to forget about things. Maybe you've got worries in situations that are novel to them, and so they get a bit overwhelmed. Maybe you've got a teen who's just feeling super stressed when it comes to performing in a test or standing up in a class situation or whether there's a friendship issue. So this technique is for any child in any situation where fundamentally they're sympathetic, their fight or flight system kicks in and says, I can't do this. This is too much. It's overwhelming. So the label that we might give it, you might really resonate with a 30 second reset, as will your child. But equally, you could call it the hero or heroine breath, if that works for your child. You could call it ready steady. You could call it my pause. You could call it brain balance. You could call it sigh it away. Whatever works, it does not matter what label you use, but a label that resonates with your child. And I would probably say one that doesn't emphasize this idea of breathing technique. So if you've got, yeah, as I said, if you've got someone who's feeling overwhelmed, that you can position it as a, this just helps your brain know that it needs to focus. This will help your brain correct itself when it thinks that you can't handle something. It's positioning it in such a way that our children feel that they've got something that is super helpful for them to be able to use it. And so I think it's probably helpful to understand what's actually happening in the body. And I think it's probably helpful to understand what's happening in the body and why this is particularly useful. And then I'm just going to talk you through a way that you can position it in terms of explaining how to do it to a really young child, and then how you might position it and explain it to an older child. So the reason why it works so well and doing this bit is that if we think about it, our children will never regulate their emotions through theory, through us talking to them about it. They regulate through rhythm. And one of those rhythms is through their breath. And the other rhythm is through us. So when we say calm down, we're not just talking about the rhythm. We're talking about the rhythm of our breathing. what we're doing is we're asking them to listen to us with their thinking brain when we're actually asking them to solve a body problem. And what the 30 second reset does is it deals directly with the body first. It says, right, let's regulate and get that rhythm back in the body. And then the emotions will follow. So three simple things happen. The first is when our children take that breath and particularly that second breath in, it re-inflates the lungs. So it's that second inhale that opens those collapsed air sacs or alveoli if you want to know. But in essence, what that does is it improves that oxygen exchange. And so what that then does is it signals safety to the brain through that long, slow exhale because it activates the vagus nerve, which basically stimulates and triggers the parasympathetic nervous system. That's our rest and restore. So our sympathetic is sudden, fight or flight. And what that long exhale is doing is it's signaling to our brain via the vagus nerve that actually we want to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system because actually we're not in danger, we're not in threat, and we're trying to get back to that equilibrium, which is our rest and restore. And the third part of it is that it tends to lower that stress chemistry because our heart rate drops. It rebalances carbon dioxide and the cortisol and adrenaline that is rushing through that sympathetic nervous system begins to decrease. And the result basically is a rapid calming effect that often happens within one to three of those breaths. So let's just kind of go back over what it is and then how we can help our children communicate what it is. So we take a breath in through our nose. A second. And then a long exhale out with our mouth. And that's how it works. Now, obviously, when do we use it? Well, we don't use it in the moment because obviously our child is overwhelmed. Our children are more likely to use a technique like this in the moment if they have been practicing it when everything is fine. So we're not going to ask them to use it mid-tantrum unless it's something that they have used multiple times when they are feeling absolutely fine. And therefore, it's something that they're used to doing. So how do we introduce this maybe to our children? So with little ones, if we're trying to explain it to them, because the whole trying to explain breaths in and out is quite tricky. So what we might say to them is you're going to smell the flower because our children know they're smelling through that nose. Smell it again. Blow out the candle. And with older children, we can talk to them a little bit more about the details of, the second breath is what opens up your lungs. And then the long one tells your brain you're safe. And then we just practice it. We practice it regularly before our children go to bed, before they go to school, before they take a test, before they do a sport, any opportunity where they're not in overwhelm, but there is that opportunity to just, I'm resetting. Hence why I personally like the 30 second reset because it's not about a problem. It's just simply almost, we can use it as a transitionary thing. I'm about to start something. I'm going to do my 30 second reset, get my brain fired up and ready for what I'm going to do next. And then we go. So we make it normal, not dramatic. What I would say is where we're likely to probably see the biggest effect and the biggest shift is when our children also see us doing it out loud. I'm doing my 30 second reset as I'm going to step out to take you all to school. I'm feeling frustrated. I'm going to take a reset breath. All of those sort of scenarios see it embedded in what we do. They then are much more likely to do it. And in fact, I've been doing a lot of research for my book and also for an upcoming episode about the research that's looked to, you know, the impact of our behavior and modeling on, on all sorts of things. So look out for that episode. It will be coming out very soon. So let's sort of go to worst case scenario. What happens if they refuse to use it in the moment? What happens if we've been practicing all sorts of different situations? Maybe our child's really bought in, but there they are again in another meltdown. And we remind them, let's do a 30 second reset. And they go into absolute rage as if we've told them to calm down. So if they refuse to do it in the moment, what do we do? We do it anyway, softly next to them. We regulate our breathing. We do it. And because our regulated breathing changes the atmosphere, changes the energy in the room. It really, really does. And sometimes the physiological side, the 30 second reset isn't about fixing our child. It's maybe about preventing us from letting it escalate. And so what we then do is we just create that space for us in that container of managing and co-regulating our children's big emotions in that moment. And that speaks volumes. To them being able to flip through that overwhelm much more quickly. So do try it and do let me know how you get on with it. Because obviously, throughout the day, we're experiencing multiple opportunities where this simple 30 second reset could have dramatic impact. Honestly, I'm not understating it. A dramatic impact on how the trajectory of the rest of that day for that child and the impact that it has on them. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to on the whole family. So I hope that you find that super helpful. And as always, if you found this episode helpful, please do share it with someone who is a parent, who is an aunt or an uncle, or anyone who you feel may benefit from this. Because let's face it, we all experience overwhelm, whether we're a parent for our children, or whether we're just simply living adult life. And if you have not yet done so, then I would be so grateful if you could just take a moment to rate and review the podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So until next time.
PodcastTranscript AI