Meditation Helps Kids With Anxiety

Breathing exercises help children deal with sleep problems

Shaun Atamanchuk usually has trouble sleeping.

He wakes up sometimes five times a night, starts to think about the worries in his life, and can't fall back asleep. In the morning, he's so tired, he has fallen asleep in class.

The nine-year-old has been sleeping better, however, since he learned how to banish his worries to the centre of the Earth.

He does this by closing his eyes, breathing slowly and deeply, and imagining a thick cord attached to the base of his spine. He visualizes the other end of the cord dropping into the ground until it reaches the centre of the Earth. He then thinks of the thoughts that are troubling him and sends them away via the cord.

"It calms me down a lot," he says. "If I'm having a bad dream, I still wake up, but I use the grounding cord and I fall back asleep."

Stress, anxiety, frustration, and worry can affect kids' lives as much as they do adults', says Wendy Demer, a child meditation facilitator who taught Atamanchuk how to ground his worries. (More)

Source: canada.com