Plant SEEDS: Cultivating Emotional Growth in Youth — Week 1: Sleep
With summer nearing its end, families are preparing for the start of the school year. Whether your child will be learning in person, via e-learning, or a combination thereof, some preparatory measures can set your child, teenager, or college student up for success.
The uncertainty and challenges of the upcoming school year are bound to increase distress and anxiety. At Mind Chicago, our therapists work with kids, teens, and families to increase positive emotions and manage difficult feelings with emotional regulation skills. You can do the same at home! SEEDS (a youth-friendly version of a DBT skill called PLEASE) helps kids and teens manage their emotions by taking care of their bodies.
SEEDS stands for: Sleep, Exercise, Education, Diet, and Self-care.
SEEDS is the kind of skill we all can use to reduce our vulnerability to strong emotions that lead to unhelpful behaviors. Making small changes to how we take care of ourselves can have a big impact on our mood. We feel so strongly about the power of SEEDS that we are spending a whole month talking about it.
Yes, September is SEEDS month!
Starting today and then every week in September, we are going to focus on a different element of SEEDS and provide practical steps to improve each aspect of your children’s lives - and yours. Let’s get started.
SEEDS #1: Sleep
It may have been difficult to maintain a reasonable sleep schedule during months of quarantining, new schedules, and summer vacation. Now that school is approaching, you may long for the days of “typical” routines while also dreading the work that will be required to create a new one. To support your children toward more satisfying and restful sleep - and ultimately more wakeful engagement in school - here are 5 tips we’d like to share:
Set up a realistic bedtime schedule before the first day of school. School is fast approaching. Don’t wait for Day 1. Begin the transition process now. Start by nudging your child’s bedtime back by 10-15 minutes each night.
Go to bed at the same time-ish each night. It’s easier to maintain a consistent sleep schedule if school days and weekends do not diverge by more than an hour or so.
Get in the sleep routine. Complete the same tasks nightly, such as putting on pajamas, brushing teeth, and doing a guided meditation. Sleep routines help prepare our bodies for a restful night and can make it easier to fall asleep more quickly over time.
Turn off electronics at least 30 minutes before bedtime. Turning off screens before bed is essential to a restful night. Blue lights emitted from most electronics make it more difficult to fall asleep and to stay asleep. Try alternative activities before bed such as reading a graphic novel, practicing finger-knitting, doing some yoga moves, or drinking a warm cup of tea. This is especially important with kids spending more time than usual using computers for e-learning.
Limit naps to 20 minutes per day. Believe it or not, 20 minutes is all our body needs to feel the benefits of a nap, which include feeling more alert, less fatigued, and improved mood. When we nap for longer than this amount of time, our body enters deeper stages of sleep, making it much more difficult to wake up and can lead to grogginess. It may be helpful to set an alarm to make sure you don’t nap for more than 20 minutes.
Practicing these skills to improve sleep health can have significant impacts on your mental health. When you feel rested, you are better able to concentrate for school or work, deal with stress and uncertainty, and respond to challenges more effectively.
Implementing routines and rules around sleep can be hard. Let us help! Reach out to us at Mind Chicago at hello@mindchicago.com.
Authored by Mind Chicago therapist and Clinical Manager, Erika McKnight, LCPC
