90- Pause and Breathe

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Welcome to Every Brand is Different, the podcast where we celebrate the unique world of neurodiversity. We are your hosts, Samantha Foote, a neurodivergent Board Certified Music Therapist and mom to three kids of ADHD and autism, and Lauren Ross, an ally to the neurodivergent community with over 10 years of experience supporting children and adults with autism.

This podcast is for parents like you. Navigating the world of neurodiversity with love and compassion. Together we'll create a world where every brain is valued and celebrated. We're excited to embark on this enlightening journey with you.

Transcript:

Samantha Foote: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Every Brain is Different podcast. It is me, Samantha Foote, here with your Friday Five, and today we're gonna be talking about mastering your own self-regulation through pausing and breathing. So, there are some ways that, or reasons why self-regulation can be hard. I know that for me, my number one thing is time pressure. When I'm late running out the door and my kids just aren't coming or they're, they're like, “I need to eat”, or “I need to do this”, and they're just not coming out with me. Or it's time to go to bed and they're not going to bed because they need to eat something, or they need a drink, or they need to go to the bathroom or whatever. I get so frustrated, and that is when I know that I need to take more time for self-regulation because I know that I'm gonna blow up and any other time it's going to be this time and some other things that might trigger some, some ways that you [00:01:00] can't self-regulate is emotional triggers. So parenting challenges can trigger strong emotions, making it difficult to regulate your emotions. Fatigue and stress -- we all know that parenting is exhausting, especially when you have a kid who's neurodivergent. You might not understand their brain; you might have to take them to lots of appointments -- it's just very exhausting. And then your personal history, if your kid activates something in you that brings up trauma that you've had or a memory that you don't like, then that can be hard to maintain self-regulation too. And the last one is complexity of situations. So, parenting neurodivergent children can present complex and unpredictable scenarios which challenges your self-regulation efforts. There might be things that you never even thought that you would have to face when you're parenting. And you know, these complexity of situations just really hinder your self-regulation sometimes. So, the power of pausing, that's [00:02:00] what we're gonna talk about now. And there are some breathing techniques that you can use when you pause. The first one is the 4-7-8 breathing technique, and this is a technique where you inhale for four seconds, hold your breath for seven seconds, and then exhale for eight seconds. And this can really help you just take time, do this a few times, and it can help you reevaluate like what you wanna do, so you're not quite so impulsive. The next one is diaphragmatic breathing, and this just focuses on breathing from your diaphragm, the muscle below your lungs, and rather than your chest. You're breathing through your diaphragm, which can help to ensure that you're taking deep breaths. What I like to do is put my hands on my stomach and really breathe into my belly and then breathe out and make sure that your belly is going in and out and not your chest, because when you're [00:03:00] breathing with your chest, that's superficial breathing. If we're breathing really down deep, that's when we get the most benefit. And then the next one is mindful breathing. This is just paying attention to your breath as you inhale and exhale, which can help to ground you in the present moment and reduce racing thoughts, reduce impulsive thoughts, different things like that. So, why do we do this? It's so we can stay self-regulated. And when we do these simple acts of breathing and mindful breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, the 4-7-8, breathing, it calms the mind. So, pausing and breathing techniques help to calm racing thoughts and reduce stress levels. It gets you out of that fight or flight that you might be in when your kid triggers something in you and triggers release of emotions where you might not be able to self-regulate. The next thing is it enhances clarity. So, taking a moment to pause and breathe allows for clearer thinking and better decision making. You get more oxygen in your system, and it just helps you think [00:04:00] more clearly. And then the next one is, promotes emotional regulation. Deep breathing regulates emotions by activating the body's relaxation response, which reduces impulsivity. The next one is, improves focus. Pausing and breathing techniques increase focus and attention, aiding and managing challenging situations more effectively. And then the next one is, it strengthens resilience. So regular practice builds resilience, enabling individuals to bounce back from stressors with greater ease. So, the more you do this, the easier it is to bounce back when you might be dysregulated. So, I hope that helps you today and then remember when you are regulated, that you model that behavior for your kid and you can model the behavior by saying, “I am feeling dysregulated right now, I'm going to pause and take a deep breath”. You might say that after you take a deep breath, if you're really prone to impulsivity, and then [00:05:00] just take a deep breath and then say, “okay, I'm going to pause and take more deep breaths so that I can handle this situation”, and then you can manage your stress and improve communication, promote positive interactions, and teach adaptive skills to your child. So, if your child sees you doing the deep breathing, then they might be like, “oh, when I'm upset, I can pause and take deep breaths, and that might help me too”.

So, I hope that these things helped you today. Let me know if any of these things helped you and what you're going to do to pause and breathe.

Then if you need more support, I welcome you to come to our Parenting Power Hour. It's the second Thursday of the month from 12:45 to 1:45 PM Mountain Daylight Time. And yeah, you can come, ask your questions, get some feedback on things that you might have questions about and it's free. So, just go to everybrainisdifferent.com and you can register for it [00:06:00] there.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. We hope this discussion on neurodiversity has provided you with support, understanding and inspiration. If you're looking for more support, or you can go to everybrainisdifferent.com and download the ultimate guide to parenting your neurodivergent child.