Breathe Easy: Helping Youth Build Healthy Hearts and Calm Minds

The first step to stress management for youth is to help them understand what stress is. They can think of it as their built-in alarm system that scans the environment for potential threats. Remind children that experiencing stress is a part of being human, it is normal, and that handling worry takes practice and time. Today you will introduce them to what stress is and some techniques to help them manage it and relax. Our goal is not to eliminate stress, but to teach children ways to handle stress.

Preparations and Tips

• If you want to use soft relaxing music while doing the deep breathing, secure that for use.
• Make sure participants are in a position where the lungs and diaphragm have space to move.
• Encourage breathing through the nose (if comfortable).

Activity Instructions to Give to Participants, Feel Free to Join In!

• Please sit or stand up nice and tall. Think good posture.
• Let’s begin by paying attention to our breathing. Notice your breath. Are you breathing through your mouth or nose or both?
• Now take one of our hands and place it over our belly, put the other hand over our heart.
• Close your mouth. Let’s breathe in through our nose, like smelling a flower, and then exhale out through our mouth like blowing out a candle.
• Ok, here we go….let’s do it on my count. Breathe in deeply through our nose to fill up our belly for 1….2….3….4 hold that for 1…2…3 now, breathe out through our mouth, pushing all the air out for 1…2…3….4
• Let’s repeat this together three more times and notice how we feel.

Wrap-up

• Can you think of a time in your day that this might be helpful? How about a situation when this could be helpful?
• Remind youth they can take deep breathes in through the nose and out through the mouth pretty much anywhere.

By prioritizing heart health and stress management, we empower youth with skills they can use anytime, anywhere. Simple practices like deep breathing remind young people that they have the ability to pause, reset, and take care of themselves in the moment. These small habits can have a big impact supporting healthy hearts, emotional well-being, and the confidence to handle life’s challenges now and in the future.

Source: Ohio State University Extension, Stress Management Series

by Lexi Ray, 4-H Youth Development Agent, February 2026