My heartbeat and me

Sensory integration

﻿In today's lesson we are going to learn more about our heart, and how that, as an internal organ, helps us to process sensory information. 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 topic 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. Lets remind ourselves about our interior sense of things. This sense is inside our body and it helps us to keep us safe, to make us healthy, to make sense of our feelings, it helps us with decisions and also to play and to learn and to be independent. Today, we're going to focus on our heart, and what that means to us. So our heart is behind our lungs in the middle of our chest, and its job is to blood-- Is to pump blood all the way through our body. And this blood really feeds our body and it keeps us alive, and it keeps us healthy. So our heart has a really, really important part to play in keeping us alive and also in keeping us healthy. Can you feel your heartbeat? Let's do an activity together. So I'm going to ask you to pause this video here, and then once you finished you can press "play" again. So ask your parent or carer to help you, sit quietly, and put your hand on the left top side of your chest and see if you can hear, "lub dub, lub dub, "lub dub." That is your heart beating and you may feel it but you may also hear it. So have a go and ask your parent and carer to help you and once you finished, press "play" and we will carry on with this lesson. Now, did you know that you can change the speed of your heartbeat? We are going to do this together again. So I'm going to ask you to pause the video and then to press "play" once you've finished. So again, we are going to need to ask your parent or carer to help you and you're going to take your pulse. Now your pulse is just your heart beating and through your veins, which is the tubes that carry your blood. And there are a few places where you can reliably feel your pulse. So one of them, the easiest way, is in here on your palm. So you're going to use your two fingers and you're going to, just press down. So I'm going to kind of try and show you. So you're just going to press down until you can feel a little pulse going. And then, but it's really important to ask your parent or carer to do this with you. So once you've taken your pulse, you're going to then stand up, and for one minute, you're going to either run on the spot, or you're going to do some star jumps. Otherwise, you can just move your arms really, really fast while you're sitting down. So have a go at this activity and then once you've done your one minute exercise, you're going to take your pulse again and it'll be interesting to see if it actually speeds up, because that's what often happens when we do exercise and see if you can do this experiment. All right. I hope you've enjoyed those two activities. Now let's have a look at our heart and here's a few fun facts. Our heart usually beats between 70 and 100 times every minute when you retire. When we exercise, our hearts can pump faster. And when we are really relaxed or asleep, our heart usually pumps slower. But did that when you are scared or angry or even worried, your heart can also pump faster? Let's see how we can slow down our heart rate. Because, especially when we are worried or when we are feeling a little bit stressed or anxious, there are things that we can do to make our heart go slower and that will help us to feel more calm and more relaxed. So what are we going to do is, you're going to pause the video here to complete this activity and ask your parent or carer to join you. So first of all, you've got to clear a space and lie down on your back. Take a slow, deep breath to fill your tummy up with air, as if you're trying to blow up a big balloon, and expand your belly as much as you can. So once you've taken a deep breath in, hold it, and now slowly let the air out of the balloon through your nose as you release the breath from your tummy. Now we're going to do this one more time and this time we're going to count. So you're going to breathe in two, three, four, hold your breath two, three, and now breathe out two, three, four, five. Wow. Do this one more time with your parent or carer, and once you've finished, you're going to press "play" and we're going to finish this lesson together. Did you find that your heart is slowing down? Next time when you do it, you may want to take it your pulse beforehand, and then do the breathing exercises. Three big breaths as three breathing exercises are really good. And then take your pulse again and see whether you've managed to slow down your heart rate, even if it's just a little bit. Well done for today and learning more about your heart. Have a great day.

My heartbeat and me

My heartbeat and me

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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