Helping your adolescent sleep better
The way we think about sleep (and not sleeping) has a big impact on us. In particular, if your child gets stressed about not sleeping or is anxious at night, then this will affect their ability to fall asleep. If they are distressed about their difficulty sleeping, then you may need to help them to alter some of their thoughts – especially beliefs about the need for sleep and how bad it is not to sleep. First, try to understand what your child or adolescent thinks about sleep. You can draw from them what their fears are with these interactive questions: I know you hate not being able to sleep. What do you hate the most about it? Do you ever worry about how hard the next day will be if you have trouble falling asleep? Most kids find not sleeping painfully boring and lonely. Do you ever feel that? Apart from bored and annoyed, do you worry about not being able to sleep? Second, address their worries and concerns.Having worked out what their thoughts are about sleep, you can then address them, through education and reassurance. The following two pages have some facts about sleep that can be helpful if you need to correct their thinking. The main thoughts parents need to correct are those that make the child stressed about not sleeping. You can use the pages attached. Another good way to do this is to share your own helpful experiences about sleep. Third, help them to wind down The hour before sleep is crucial. Research shows that adolescents need close to an hour to relax their brains and body. That means planning the evening activities including homework around stopping everything an hour before sleep time. That means no homework and no games; no movies and most certainly no social media access in the hour before bed. Reading is the most obvious activity, in a quiet and not-too-light environment. A quiet talk can help some kids. You could also do some light stretching together or offer them a backrub. Kids often say that their friends are using computers late at night; or they might say the i-pad helps them to relax. You can always say that what other kids do is not your way of coming up with a parenting policy. Furthermore, some people can get away with electronics before bed and then sleep – but if sleep has been a problem, then it all needs to change for at least a month. Fourth, take responsibility to implement ‘sleep hygiene’. Sleep hygiene works but adolescents and children are rarely motivated or organised enough to do it. That means the responsibility falls on parents to know what to do and implement it. Page 3 of this handout explains what sleep hygiene is and how to apply it. If problems are not helped by the ideas here, see your doctor or a psychologist. Sometimes a child needs a medical assessment to determine what type of sleep disorder they have. FACTS ABOUT SLEEP
- Everyone has periods in their life when they don’t sleep well (some people worry about that and focus on it more than others).
- Need for sleep varies from person to person. Some need more than adults. Most adolescents go through a period when their brain wants to wake up late and go to sleep late. The owner of that brain needs to over-ride that and be patient.
- You are probably sleeping more than you think. Study after study (in sleep labs) has shown that people who experience sleep disturbance sleep more than they realise. It is often broken and light sleep but their brain does go into sleep-activity. We just don’t realise it for a few reasons: (a) how can you ‘know’ you are asleep?; (b) there is no clear waking moment because the mind is ‘chattering’ as we wake up.
- A person CAN function on just a few hours a night (or even no sleep). It is not pleasant but it is not too bad for you medically or physically to miss out on sleep.
- The body will right itself over time. The human body will restore sleep functioning through its own self-regulation when it is ready – your job it to do all the right sleep hygiene things and not get into any bad habits. Those things won’t guarantee good sleep, but they enable it to happen as quickly as possible.
- Sleep is not one long, solid period of unconsciousness. We cycle through lighter to deeper (stages 1-4) and dreaming (REM) sleep throughout the night in approximately 90 minute cycles. As such, brief awakenings during the night are normal.
- People who have difficulties staying asleep during the night, may experience anxiety upon a normal nocturnal awakening as a result of thoughts about the awakening (e.g. “oh no I’m awake again, I’m never going to get a good night’s sleep”). This activates our anxiety system which essentially tells our body we need to be alert and awake. We need to remain calm and accepting.
- Your brain controls when and how your sleep more than you do. That means, give your brain the best opportunity to be ready for sleep. Read the suggestions over the page on ‘sleep hygiene’ to know what to do.
- It takes more than one or two nights for the body to restore a normal sleep-wake cycle; so be patient and have modest expectations in the short-term.
SLEEPING WELL: ‘SLEEP HYGIENE’ The essence of ‘sleep hygiene’ is creating the right environment to sleep in and creating habits and patterns so that your body and brain learn to expect to sleep when in bed. If you can do the following strictly for three weeks – it will be effective. After that, you don’t need to be so strict. Give this a go for 14 to 21 days – it is a gift to yourself. Before bed:
- Get some daily exposure to outdoor light, especially early in the day.
- Get regular exercise each day, preferably in the morning. There is good evidence that regular exercise improves restful sleep.
- Use a physical relaxation exercise just before going to sleep. Such as muscle relaxation, imagery, massage, warm bath etc. Maybe ask for a neck rub from a parent.
- Use some de-stressing strategies about an hour before bed. For instance, write a to-do list for tomorrow (so your mind does not have to remember) or talk to a parent about the things that you are worrying about (so your mind does not have to process that in the night).
- Tell your mind it’s okay to let go of ALL worries for the next 10 hours.
- Put some helpful thoughts in your head – especially accepting that sleep is never perfect and it will come when it is ready. People who sleep well, don’t worry about sleep, they accept that sleep is different every night and that is okay.
In Bed:
- Keep the temperature in your bedroom comfortable (not too warm; not too cold)
- Keep the bedroom dark enough and quiet enough to help sleep.
- Go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time every day (this one’s important!).
- NO GAMES or ELECTRONICS! Only use your bed for sleep. If you do homework in bed, your brain will associate bed with work and be wakeful there. If you watch movies or play e-games in bed, then your brain will associate bed with being entertained and be wakeful there.
- Turn your clock away so you can’t see it.
DON’T…
- …nap or sleep during the day, or sleep-in late in the morning (even on the weekend and even after a terrible night’s sleep) as it will make it harder to sleep the next night!
- …have any electronic devices in the bedroom that might alert in the night (e.g a phone)
- …engage in stimulating activity in bed or just before bed, such as exercise, competitive game, using a computer, watching exciting TV, or having a difficult discussion.
- …have caffeine in the evening (coffee, some teas, chocolate, soft drinks etc).
- …go to bed too hungry or too full
- …command yourself to go to sleep, this only makes your mind and body more alert.
