Anxiety and worry

Sensory integration

﻿We are learning about our interoception sense. And one of the things that we are going to learn about today is when we have body feelings that tells us that we are worried. And what those feelings look like, and what they feel like, and what we can do to make it better. We as therapists have tried to think of the best way to continue to support children, young people and their families. We will be exploring two big areas that we regularly provide advice and support on across all ages and abilities. Each lesson will have ideas and activities that can be carried out at home or in school. This information is to be used alongside any specific strategies or resources which have been given by your child's school or therapist. If you have any questions or would like help tailoring this to your child's needs, then please contact your local therapy service. Our interoception sense is all about the feelings that we have inside our body. And it's really important that we know how our organs are working, because they help us to keep safe, they keep us alive. They help us to make decisions to play, to learn, to be independent, and it keeps us healthy. In today's session we are going to think about what happens inside my body when I'm scared, or when I'm worried. When you are worried, your heart starts to pump a lot faster. Your breathing can become really really faster so that your body can be supplied with more oxygen. Your pupils and your eyes will go bigger for you to see better. And then your digestive system, and your urinary systems can shut off. Because in that moment, your body is all about survival. And that's what happens when we are scared. But there's one other thing that happens when we worry a lot, It can be that we feel anxious, and sometimes we don't know exactly what we are scared of, but it can carry on for a long time. And that is what we sometimes refer to as anxiety. So extra things that can happen when we're feeling anxious is that we can feel a tightness in our chest, our tummy maybe aching, we may feel a little bit dizzy, or we may just feel really worried that something terrible is going to happen. And these feelings can be really scary. We are going to have a look, and I want you to pause the video here. Uuhm, and I want you to think about these body reactions. So have a chat with your parent or your carer, and you're going to need some paper and pens. And chat about body reactions when you are feeling scared. And then maybe draw the outline of a person, and see if you can draw where you are feeling scared or where you are feeling worried. Is it that you feel worried really in your tummy, your tummy being really tight? Is it in your muscles in your shoulders or is it maybe your heart that's pumping fast. Think about, and have a chat with your parent or your carer, and pause the video here to get everything ready, and then to complete this task. And when you're finished, you can press play, and we will carry on with the lesson. So let's look a little bit more at my worries and my body, and what we can do about it. Because we've already learned that we can change our heart rate, and we can change the the depth of our breath by doing some breathing exercises. So let's try this out. There is a word that you can remember, that will help you to think about what you can do. And it's the word stop. So STOP means the S is for stop, the T is for take a breath, the O is for observe what is happening around you so maybe just take a second after you've taken a breath to look around you, what is making you feel scared? And then P is a plan for what you can do next. Is it that you want to stay in that situation? Or is it that you're going to turn around, and walk away. But you can if you take a deep a breath. It will give you a few seconds to just look around what is happening, and then you can make a plan. So remember this acronym it's called STOP. We're going to kind of try and do something that we've done in a few other lessons as well, where we've learned about how we can slow our breathing. And that helps us to feel calm. So we're going to pause the video here to complete this task, and please ask your parents or your carer to do this with you. So first of all clear a big space for you to lie down on your back. And now you're going to take a deep slow breath, and you're going to fill your tummy with that breath. And try to think of it as a balloon that you're blowing up, and hold that breath, and now slowly release it. If you can blow through your nose, that's great, but otherwise to your mouth is fine too. So we going to take a second breath now, and this time we're going do to it with counting. So breathe in two, three, four, hold your breath two, three, and now breathe out two, three, four, five until all your breath is gone. That's great. Now you're going to do it by pausing the video, and you're going to do it with your parent and your carer. And once you've done it, couple of times, please press play, and we will carry on with this lesson. Here are some more ideas for when you are feeling worried. You can on the spot when you're in a worry, you can quickly think of naming animals alphabetically. So you can think about alligator, bear, cow, dog, Uuhm eland and so on and so on, and a frog. Because what this does, it makes you stop and think. And as soon as we start to think those initial automatic reactions of when we are worried, goes, kind of is a little bit better controlled. So they don't go away, but they are better controlled when our thinking part in our brain takes over from that earlier reptile brain bit that we have, which kicks in when we have to do survival things. And that's what happens when we feeling scared is your survival part of your brain kicks in. So when you have to think, and name sort of stuff, or when you have to think, and do counting all of those things really work really well. Another thing is to do something more physical. So have something that you can squeeze, something like play dough, or a toy, or your just your fist just by squeezing and releasing, squeezing and releasing, that will help you to feel it a little bit more calm. And something else in the moment when you're feeling really worried and maybe panicky is maybe to have a cold drink of water, and even better is maybe to have a straw, and drink something that's a little bit slightly sour something like a yoghourt drink. Those things can really help to kind of just, just give you a moment to think. And then you can think about that word stop that we've talked about earlier. Another really helpful trick that you can do is to think about five, four, three, two, one sensory things. So what we mean by this is you again you kind of using your thinking brain, and you have to think of five things that you can see. Four things that you can touch. Three things that you can hear, two things that you can smell, and one thing that you can taste at that moment. And that will give you time to breathe, and will give you time to look around, and observe your surroundings, And will help you to have some time to put together a plan of what you're going to do next. You did absolutely great today, and I hope that this tips and ideas would help you when you feel anxious, and that you now know that anxiety and feeling worried are things that you can feel in your body. And the good news is that using your breathing, you can help to control some of these feelings that can just bring up. Uuhm, especially when our reptile brain is taking over, and that survival brain kicks in. Have a great day.

Anxiety and worry

Anxiety and worry

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