This week Bobbi Conner talks with Dr. Christine San Giovanni about the benefits of short meditation breaks for children. Dr. San Giovanni is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and a pediatrician at MUSC Children’s Health.
TRANSCRIPT:
Conner: I'm Bobbi Conner for South Carolina Public Radio with Health Focus here at the radio studio for the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. The American Academy of Pediatrics encourages parents to share meditation practices with their children to help them unplug, relax, and focus. Doctor Christine San Giovanni is here to talk about the benefits of including short meditation breaks in your child's routine. Doctor Dr. San Giovanni is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and she's a pediatrician at MUSC Children's Health. Doctor Dr. San Giovanni, tell us about the benefits of meditation for children and also teens.
Dr. San Giovanni: Meditation helps us all focus on deep breathing, and deep breathing can increase the chemicals or hormones in our brain that help us feel better. So that calms our nervous system and really can help decrease our stress hormones. It can improve our mental health. That meditation can help with improved attention and behavior, anxiety, depression. It can help kids with their school performance and with sleep, and even with different GI issues and symptoms, and obesity. It can also help with headaches and even increased blood pressure. There's studies that can show that there has been benefits with all of that.
Conner: Give us an example of a simple breathing exercise that we can teach our children.
Dr. San Giovanni: There's some that I use with the kids I see in clinic. One of them is thinking of a really delicious piece of pizza, and putting it out in front of them like a triangle with their hands. You want to take a deep breath in to smell it because it's too hot to eat. So, having them take a deep breath in and holding it and then blowing it out so they can cool it off. That's the imagery that I usually give them in clinics, to imagine taking that deep breath in and then blowing all that air back out to help with some deep breathing.
Conner: Do you have one more breathing exercise that might be good for kids to learn?
Dr. San Giovanni: Yes. Another simple breathing technique is to just have them put their hand up and trace the fingers on their hand, and every time one of their fingers gets to the top of the other finger, they're going to take a deep breath in. And then, as they come back down toward their palm, they're going to breathe out so that they can take five deep breaths with each hand.
Conner: How can parents incorporate these short meditation breaks into their child's daily routine?
Dr. San Giovanni: You can practice deep breathing exercises with kids, maybe when you're going to sleep at night. You can remind them to take these deep breaths when maybe they're going to do something really important, like take a test or they're going to be in a sports event or maybe a musical performance. These are very quick and easy breathing techniques that parents can go over with their children. You don't need to spend more than 30 seconds doing them if you don't have a lot of time.
Conner: Any additional tips about meditation breaks for adolescents?
Dr. San Giovanni: We all can appreciate that as you become an adolescent and get older, you probably have even more stress in your life and more hectic days. We also know adolescents have increasing mental health concerns. They have a lot more time on phones and with their social media. So, this meditation can also help adolescents get off their phones and social media, and help them have some feelings of calmness and peacefulness in their day.
Conner: Dr. San Giovanni thanks for this information about meditation breaks for kids.
Dr. San Giovanni: Thank you for having me.
Conner: From the radio studio for the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, I'm Bobbi Conner for South Carolina Public Radio.
Health Focus transcripts are intended to accurately represent the original audio version of the program; however, some discrepancies or inaccuracies may exist. The audio format serves as the official record of Health Focus programming.
