Smell the flower, blow out the candlehot chocolate breathing

How do you do smell the flower, blow out the candle?

Hold up two fingers: one is a flower, one is a candle. Press Start and breathe with the circle.

From about 7, stretch it: 3 seconds to smell, 5 to blow.

What is hot chocolate breathing?

The cosy version, good for winter and for children who don’t care for flowers. Hold your hands round a pretend mug. Smell the hot chocolate, slowly, through your nose. Then blow on it to cool it down: a long, gentle blow, so it doesn’t spill. Same breath, different picture. Grown-ups with a real mug can do it too, and let Breathform keep the count.

Why does a slow blow calm kids down?

Your heart speeds up a little as you breathe in and slows a little as you breathe out. A long breath out gives the slowing side more time. Blowing through rounded lips stretches the breath out without any counting, which is why so many children’s calming games are blowing games.

The flower and candle game hasn’t been studied in children. In adults, making the breath out longer than the breath in, without changing the pace, shifted heart rhythm towards rest in a small lab study (Bae et al. 2021). Pursed-lip breathing itself is studied mostly in people with COPD, where it slows breathing during exercise (Mayer et al. 2018).

So: a simple, kind way to make the breath out longer, resting on research in adults.

Every study on this page (2)

• Bae et al., 2021: In 28 healthy adults, lengthening the out-breath without slowing down raised heart-rhythm signs of calm in a single session.
• Mayer et al., 2018: In eight trials of people with the lung disease COPD, pursed-lips breathing during exercise slowed breathing but didn't help them walk further.

Can toddlers do flower and candle breathing?

Yes: from about 2, it’s often the first breath a child can copy. Skip the counts. Use a real flower from the garden, and a real candle you hold well out of reach. Blow out the candle at a birthday and talk about doing it slowly. Toddlers mostly learn from your face, so make your own sniff slow and your blow long.

What other sniff-and-blow breaths are there?

Lots, and they’re all the same breath in a new costume: blow on hot soup, blow a dandelion clock, keep a feather in the air, make a pinwheel spin, blow a bubble without popping it. For a breath with a balloon in the tummy, try balloon breathing. For sniffs, hisses and hums, see animal breaths for kids, and the full set is in breathing exercises for kids.

Questions people ask

How many breaths should we do?

Five is a nice number: five candles, one on each finger, and the game ends when the last one is folded down. That’s about 30 seconds. Toddlers may only manage two or three before they want to blow raspberries, and that still counts. Older children can do a second hand, more slowly.

What is birthday cake breathing?

The same breath, with a cake. Hold up your hands with all ten fingers as candles. Smell the cake, then blow out one candle at a time, slowly, folding each finger down. It’s a favourite before birthday parties, when excitement is high and the real candles are still to come.

What if my child blows hard and fast?

Lots of children do at first: a candle means one big puff. Turn it into a game of keeping the flame bending without going out. Hold a real feather, a tissue strip or a pinwheel in front of them and see who can keep it moving the longest. A long, gentle blow is the whole point.

Can grown-ups use this breath?

Yes. For adults it’s pursed-lip breathing: in through the nose, then out for twice as long through softly rounded lips, as if blowing on soup. It’s widely taught for breathlessness and for slowing down. Do it alongside your child and nobody needs to know you need it too. Full guide: pursed-lip breathing.