Background: Your heart rate changes based on your thoughts. Excited thoughts make it speed up, and calming thoughts make it slow down. Deep breathing calms your heart as well. When your heart rhythms are slow and calm, your brain rhythms are also slow and calm, and a brain that is calm is focused and ready to learn.
Today in Class: We deepened students' experience of heart meditation by having them also do belly breathing. They sat with hands on heart and belly; thought of a person, animal, or place they loved; and focused their loving thoughts on their hearts while breathing deeply.
Self-Reflection: Breathe deeply. Just doing so calm your heart and your mind. Now think of a person, animal, or place that you love. Breathe deeply. Focus your thinking on your heart. Breathe deeply. How do you feel?
At-Home Support
With your child, discuss heart meditation.
- Your teacher said that you did more with heart meditation today. What was the new part? (Doing belly breaths while meditating)
- What was that like? What did you feel like afterward?
- How did that change your experience of heart meditation?
- Breathing and heart meditation both work so well. Putting them together must be really powerful.
- Let's try it for two minutes. Put one hand on your heart and another on your belly. Breathe. Close your eyes and think about what you love. Breathe. Focus that love on your heart. Breathe.
- (Two minutes later) How do you feel now? This is how I feel: ________________________ .
- It's powerful to combine heart meditation with breathing.
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