We spend a third of our lives sleeping, but sometimes, we forget that we need adequate rest to stay healthy.
In general, sleep deprivation negatively affects the quality of life and an individual’s overall health and wellness.
When you’re sleep-deprived, you may experience memory loss, moodiness, and difficulties concentrating which could hinder you from doing your daily tasks safely and efficiently.
Moreover, chronic sleep loss may lead to long-term issues such as high blood pressure, weight gain, and a weakened immune system.
Your family, especially the kids, may experience the same signs of exhaustion when they don’t get the hours of sleep required for their age bracket.
When your child lacks sleep, they may have problems focusing, have low energy levels, or are noticeably anxious.
On top of that, your child may acquire problems in their physical and mental development.
Essentially, sleep is an important part of your child’s day because this is when the body replenishes itself while trying to retain all the information it absorbed during the day.
During deep sleep, your child’s body restores energy, performs internal repairs, and releases hormones for brain development.
Overall, your child needs to get enough sleep to prevent problems in memory, concentration, and all the health issues mentioned earlier.
With that in mind, here are some tips to help you and your family instill better sleeping habits and make bedtimes a lot more restful.
Sleep is especially important for your child’s development. Image source: Pexels
Table of Contents
Tip 1: Be mindful of your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle
Getting in sync with your body’s circadian rhythm is an important strategy for sleeping better.
If you can get your family to keep a routine sleep-wake schedule, they will feel much more energized than sleeping the same number of hours at different times of the day.
According to the Sleep Foundation, adults should have 7-9 hours while toddlers must get 11-14 hours.
The best amount of hours for teens and school-age children should be somewhere between these ranges.
However, maintaining a sleep-wake routine may be difficult to do if one of you suffers from sleep ailments like sleep apnea.
This particular ailment occurs when your breathing temporarily stops at irregular intervals.
Usually, sleep apnea comes with symptoms such as snoring and daytime sleepiness.
To treat sleep apnea, doctors may recommend using a device called a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine which delivers high-pressure air into the body’s airways to prevent them from collapsing and causing sporadic breathing pauses.
There have been reported injuries included in potential CPAP lawsuits in the past, so you need to do research on the right CPAP brand for a family member who needs to have the machine because of sleep apnea.
To educate yourself on CPAP machine defects and resulting lawsuits, you can see more here.
Tip 2: Establish bedtime routines
Creating a pre-sleep routine effectively communicates the idea of bedtime to your kids.
Establish a set of activities before bedtime and try to follow them as much as possible.
Consider getting the family to participate in activities that bring down energy levels such as taking a warm bath, listening to calming music, and reading bedtime stories.
Once the kids are asleep, the older members of the household can spend a few minutes doing meditative activities like yoga to induce calm.
A proper sleep-wake schedule can help you get better, more restful sleep. Image source: Pexels
Tip 3: Limit screen time
Aside from being bad for the eyes, staring at a screen to surf the web or play games can keep you from sleeping.
Endless playing, streaming, and scrolling on social media can result in dopamine loops in the brain, which causes that feeling of wakefulness.
To prevent these stimulants from messing with your family’s body clocks, consider prohibiting device usage before bedtime.
A good ballpark for device banning would be at least an hour before bedtime.
Tip 4: Create a cozy environment for sleeping
Sometimes, all it takes is a warm and inviting environment to get the whole family to get some sleep.
For the kids’ rooms, consider investing in dimmer lamps or fairy lights to turn on at night.
It may also be a good idea to close the curtains or blinds and use relaxing scents such as incense and essential oils—both for you and the kids.
If your family members happen to be light sleepers, it may help to turn on “white noise” sounds to encourage sleep.
Tip 5: Encourage daytime activities and healthy eating habits
Being active during the day encourages the body to reserve the night for resting and recharging.
Younger kids tend to be a lot more active than adults, and as such, they need to have plenty of physical activities during the day to get sufficient sleep at night.
It would also help to encourage everyone to get plenty of fresh air and sunlight—this encourages your family to expend energy during the day and seek rest at night.
Apart from fresh air and physical activity, your family also needs to be mindful of what to eat and drink.
It’s a given that everyone needs to stay hydrated, but one should try to avoid caffeinated beverages like coffee in the afternoon which will only affect sleep.
It’s also ideal to ingest healthy snacks such as granola bars, fruits, whole-grain crackers, and bagels with cream cheese before bedtime.
Foods such as walnuts, cherries, oats, tomatoes, and bananas are also rich in melatonin, which is a hormone that works to regulate sleep and your body clock.
It’s important to keep these snacks LIGHT, especially since large meals before bedtime can cause issues like heartburn, indigestion, weight gain, and acid reflux.
Pre-bedtime routines remind kids of the right time to sleep. Image source: Pexels
Tip 6: Prioritize good sleeping habits as a family
Lastly, you mustn’t make these sleep habits a one-time thing with your family.
Make sure that everyone understands the necessity of sleep and how a lack of it can impact their health.
And perhaps most importantly, the older members of the household must be able to lead by example.
As an adult, you need to practice what you preach when it comes to good sleeping habits.
By doing so, you can help your family lay the foundations of a long life—one that puts health and wellness above all.
We hope you find this article useful – 6 Tips to Help Your Loved Ones Sleep Better.
References:
https://www.washington.edu/howdoilearn/healthy-sleep-habits-for-your-family/#:~:text=Avoid%20phones%2C%20TVs%2C%20tablets%2C,for%20an%20hour%20before%20bedtime.&text=Get%20enough%20exercise%20%E2%80%93%20in%20the,quiet%2C%20dark%20and%20relaxing%20environment.
https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/focused-on-health/healthy-sleep-habits.h13-1589046.html
https://www.rescueremedy.com/en-us/explore/rescue-blog/2021/6-healthy-sleep-habits-for-the-whole-family/
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/healthy-living/sleep/Pages/healthy-sleep-habits-how-many-hours-does-your-child-need.aspx
6 ways to encourage healthy sleep habits for the whole family
https://www.healthshots.com/mom-says/here-are-12-tips-to-build-healthy-sleeping-habits-in-children/
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