This is the first in a series of fun family yoga ideas to practise at home, this week we are looking at Bhramari breathing, otherwise known as Bumble Bee breath.
This is a fun exercise to do with children, or with your baby snuggled in your lap to enjoy the good vibrations. You might like to sit back to back with your partner or an older child, it’s lovely to have contact in some way that feels easy for you. Begin sitting on the floor together, use cushions, lay down if you need to, and most of all, be comfortable.
Describe what you are going to do together with your children first. You can agree on a set number of breaths with older children and for little ones you can agree to stop when you sound some chimes, often there is a natural quietening but some children prefer some boundaries to relax into the game.
Begin together by closing eyes and focusing on breathing, notice where your body moves when you breathe. You can gently lengthen exhalations and relax into pauses between each breath. Adults may enjoy this for a long time but for children keep this part short to around 5 breaths. You might imagine that there are bees nearby collecting pollen from the flowers in a tree, or cuddled up together in their bee hive home.
Now with eyes closed, and fingers or palms closing your ears, take a breath in together and breathe out with a low sounding hum – “hmmmmmmmm”, after each hum a slow breath in through the nose and with each exhale hum. You don’t need to be all humming together but try to allow your hum to fill any silence when children are breathing in as this helps to keep you all in the magic of the sound. You can play with making the hum lower for big bees and higher for baby bees. It’s fun to notice where in your mouth, face, etc you can feel the sound. Using a deep low resonance to finish is very relaxing. One of the best things about yoga and games with children is that your possibilities are endless, let your imaginations become bright and have fun.
Bhramari breathing is used for all ages as an instant way to soothe the nervous system and relieve tension, anger and anxiety. It is a very effective technique for people suffering from hypertension as it calms the agitated mind.
Cosmic Kids Yoga have loads of brilliant yoga stories and games on youtube which you can enjoy at home, in this story about Enzo the Bee, the teacher Jamie uses Bumble Bee breath. Felix qualified as a children’s yoga teacher with Cosmic Kids Yoga last year, and they are our favourite source of quality children’s yoga activities online :
Here’s some flowers you could plant together this spring time to attract bees to your home :
We’d love to hear from you with any questions, or to share your own experiences and ideas, you can leave comments in the box below or email us at maya@. Visit the blog regularly for more fun ideas and yoga insights.
Namaste,
Maya
