Good morning! Let’s tense our muscles as we make our bodies into the shape of toast, and then relax again.
Good morning! Let’s tense our muscles as we make our bodies into the shape of toast, and then relax again.
* You can learn more about Taes Leavitt and her work by visiting bigheartjourney.com.
And you can write to Taes or record a voicemail and send it to listen@akidsco.com. We would love so much to hear about your day or the ways you say goodnight.
GMGN
S1E51, MORNING Toaster Breath (R)
[INTRODUCTION]
Taes: Good morning. My name is Taes and I want to welcome you to today.
Can you wave your hand and say, “Good morning, day.”
Can you put your hands on your heart and say, “Good morning, heart.”
And I want to say good morning to you.
I just love getting to start today with you as we check in, as we wake up our bodies, and as we think about what is in store for us today.
Are you ready to start off our morning? Great!
So let's get started with our activity.
[TOASTER BREATH]
Taes: Can you jump up on your feet? Great.
Now, can you take a great big, deep breath in? And once you get to the top, hold that breath. And I want you to flex every single muscle in your body and pretend that you are a piece of toast.
What? Yes. I said it.
Pretend that you're a piece of toast. Flex your head. Flex your hands Flex your arms. Flex your middle. Flex all the way down. You're going to tighten all of the muscles in your body until I say, “ding.”
And then you are going to let your air out. And you're going to relax all of the muscles in your body. Oh. And just notice how relaxed you can get when you let all of your muscles go loosey goosey. There you go.
Okay. Ready? We're going to do it again. This is called “Toaster Breath”. Take a big deep breath in and at the top, pretend you are a piece of toast. You're going to flex all of the muscles in your body and make them really, really tight. If you've never been a piece of toast before, this is your big moment. Let me see you be a piece of toast until you hear me say “ding”.
Now you're going to pop the toast. Let all the air out. Hhaa. And let all of your muscles relax and get nice and floppy.
Let's try “Toaster Breath” one more time. Ready?
Take a big deep breath in. Pretend you are a piece of toast. Let me see you would be the best piece of toast you can be. And, “ding.”
Let all your muscles out. Let your air out and just go a little bit floppy.
How do you feel after doing “Toaster Breath”?
Yeah, thank you for sharing.
So “Toaster Breath” works because what we're doing is we're flexing all of our muscles, making them nice and tight. And then we're relaxing them, which gives us a big contrast because we can really feel how relaxed we can get.
“Toaster Breath” is really good when you're going throughout your day and you start to have really big feelings. You can use “Toaster Breath” to move through those feelings and to help regulate yourself.
And the thing is about “Toaster Breath” is that it's a little bit silly. So anytime you start pretending that you are a piece of toast, you might even get the giggles and the giggles are a really good way to move through big feelings.
So I want to invite you to try using “Toaster Breath” today. And then later on, when we get together, you can let me know how it went.
[CLOSING]
Taes: I'm so excited for you and for your day.
And I want to say thank you so much for starting today with me and for setting yourself up for a big heart kind of day.
I can't wait to see you tonight and hear about all of the things that you did.
Remember: there is nobody in the whole world with a heart, just like yours.
I love you. And I love your big heart so much.