How to Deal with Nightmares | Mindfulness for Kids | Cosmic Kids Zen Den

Hi everyone. Welcome to the Cosmic Kids Zen Den. This is our place for helping our bodies and minds be healthy, strong and happy. Let's sit nice and comfortably and take a big deep breath. Clear your mind. Let your body settle and enjoy being in the space you are in right now. Here in the Zen Den, you are learning about you and the ways you can help yourself when stuff comes up that's hard or challenging. Now, let's talk about nightmares. Can you remember having a nightmare ever? It's a dream where things happen that frighten you, or you see things that you find scary or worrying. Usually, you wake up when you have a nightmare. And because you're still sleepy, it feels like the bad stuff in the dream is still happening while you're awake. So we might think that the monster in the dream is really there. When it really isn't, and won't ever be, let me tell you, everyone has nightmares every now and again. The main thing to know is that nightmares are not real, and they can't hurt you. Dreaming about something scary does not mean it will happen in real life. Also, it doesn't mean you're a bad person who wants to do mean or scary things. So, why do we have them? Well, our dreams happen in a part of our brain that only works when our thinking brain, the one we use when we're awake, is asleep. The dreaming part of our brain gets to work while we sleep, going through all the stuff that's happened to us in the days, weeks and months before. And it makes up pictures and movies, sometimes really strange ones, to help us deal with those experiences. I'll tell you about one of mine. I used to do acting in plays and I would have to learn lots of words. It would take me hours of practice to do this so I wouldn't forget them. So I often dreamt that I was doing the play but I could not remember the words. It was horrible. So the thing I was stressing about was played back to me through my dreams. Dreams can be about anything. Friends at school, teachers, places you've been, even flying, and so can nightmares. They often come from seeing scary things, or I find if I've read a scary book before bed, they can happen. Sometimes you can have a nightmare for no reason at all. Our brains are very complicated, and nobody fully understands them yet. Now, I have some helpful ideas and mindfulness tricks which can help deal with nightmares when they come along. I've tried them and they all help enormously. Maybe they can help you too. The first and best way is to try going to bed at the same time each night and waking up at the same time each morning. This is called a sleep routine, where you do the same thing every day. This makes your body and mind feel much happier and relaxed. So you're set up for a good sleep and much less likely to have nightmares. When I was little, I had three cuddly toys I slept with every night. My blue Ted, Herbie Hedgehog and Wrinkles the dog. They felt lovely and soft. They smelt really nice and they always made me feel safe. If I woke up, I'd give them a squeeze and a kiss. And I'd always feel better again. I also used to like keeping my bedroom door open a little bit too. Just wide enough so the cat could come in. And so I felt closer to my parents. You can also leave the light on outside your bedroom. Which makes it easier to see all the normal things there in your room if you wake up. One thing you can do very easily is fix your breathing. This really helps. When you wake up from a nightmare, you will be breathing higher up in your neck and chest, which makes us feel more panicked and worried. By making your breath go deeper into your tummy, you help settle the scary feelings and become much calmer. To do this, put your hands on your tummy, close your eyes and think about breathing down into your tummy. Try it now as you do this. Your tummy will rise and fill like a balloon, then when you breathe out, it will lower back down and empty. Practice doing a few balloon breaths like these and you will soon feel much calmer. Another helpful thing to do is to tell someone about it in the morning. When you talk about your nightmare and explain what happened, it becomes a lot less scary. Just saying it out loud makes it sound so much less important than you thought it was at the time. You aren't being a baby if you feel scared after a nightmare. There's nothing wrong with feeling scared. It's a normal feeling, and we all feel it sometimes. Even grown-ups do. But now you know what to do to help yourself when a scary dream comes along. How you use a good sleep routine, calm breathing, cuddly toys, and talking about your dream to someone else to help it go away. I hope that's been helpful. And remember, keep up the practice to become a true Cosmic Kids Zen Den Master. Bye-bye.