Salt lamps and your childs sleep.

Parenting Advice: Helping Your Child Sleep
By: Dr. Noel Swanson


In order for us to get restful sleep, we need to be relaxed. In order to relax, a number of things have to happen. First of all, we need to feel safe and secure. Obviously, if there is tension in the house - abuse, parents rowing, problems with finances or neighbours, or else problems at school or with friends, it will be much harder to relax and fall asleep.

We also need to feel secure and safe in the bed. Some children with sensory integration difficulties, such as problems with touch sensitivity, body position sense (proprioception), or gravitational insecurity may find lying down on a high bed difficult. Such children may be helped by having heavy blankets that help them to feel more grounded.

To sleep, we then need to turn our minds off the business of the day, shut out the distractions of the environment and slow down our heart rate and metabolism. As we drift into sleep, not only does the body slow down, so too does the brain. Brain waves, which are often running along at 14 Hertz (cycles per second) or more during the day, will slow down first to an "alpha" rhythm (around 10 Hz) and then gradually right down to the deep sleep of a "delta" rhythm (4-7 Hz).

Everyone has to quiet their minds before they can fall asleep. It isn't always easy, but we need to learn how to let go of what happened during the day, close our ears and minds to any environmental distractions, and slow our heart rates and metabolism. During the day our brainwaves run at 14 Hertz, or cycles per second. They may even cycle higher. When we fall asleep the brain and body both slow down. During the first stage of sleep our brainwaves slow to an "alpha" rhythm of about 10 Hz. During deep or "delta" sleep we are running at 4 to 7 Hz.

Some ways to help sleep come more easily, are keeping to a set routine and creating a comfortable environment. Following these suggestions help our bodies pick up signals letting it know that it's time to slow down and go to sleep. Here are some helpful ideas for getting there:

A bedtime story. This helps to push out the anxieties of the day, whilst also giving the child some special one-to-one attention. The child feels loved and valued, and therefore safe and secure. This can be followed by a recorded tape story, to which the child can listen with eyes closed and in a darkened room. But pick a story that is calming, not frightening!

Relaxing music. Unlike the eyes, we cannot close our ears. The sounds and noises of our environment are constantly entering into our system. Most of them tend to wake us up and increase stress. This is particularly true of sudden and unexpected noises, such as a dog barking, a fox howling, of a heavy lorry passing by. While we cannot shut our ears, we can modify the sounds around us. First of all is to make the room as quiet as possible. Often there is not much that you can do about this, but certainly heavy curtains, double glazing, and closed doors can all help.

Secondly, we can introduce sounds that help to shut out the wrong noises, and that also help us to relax. White noise, such as that produced by a fan or a humidifier does help to drown out the lorries and the barking dogs. So does a radio playing quietly in the background. Unfortunately, these sounds in themselves tend to be arousing and stressful rather than relaxing. This is to do with two factors: pitch and beat. High frequencies sounds are energising, whilst low frequencies are relaxing. White noise is fairly high frequency, as is most music played on the radio - especially if played through a cheaper system with a poor bass response. Also, most popular music has a fast beat. Disco music is the most obvious example of this. No doubt at times you have found yourself tapping or nodding in time with the beat of some catchy music. This is called "entrainment", and describe the fact that our bodies like to align themselves with the rhythms around us. Our heart rates do the same - in general, as you listen to fast music or a fast beat (such as with rap music), your heart rate will speed up; when you listen to slow music, it slows down.

For sleep, we need to listen to low pitched sounds with a slow rhythm. We should try for a beat of 50 to 60 Hz, the rate or our resting hearts. Where do we find these sounds? Some classical music and some nature sounds qualify. I recommend recordings made specially for relaxation. Some of the best are made by Steven Halpern. The Sound Health Series CDs, called "Relax" and "De-Stress" are great. Play them quietly as background noise to drown out the dogs and to create a peaceful environment in the child's bedroom. If he wakes often during the night, consider playing continuous-play CD.

Colour and Light. Not only are our bodies and minds sensitive to the frequencies and rhythms or sounds, we are also profoundly affected by light and colour. This is well know by supermarkets and football teams! The supermarkets use green/blue tinged lights to make the vegetables look greener and fresher, but red tinged light on their meat counters. This is done very subtly, but very effectively. The colours on the product packaging are equally carefully chosen and designed to motivate you to buy. The stores are brightly lit, and may have "muzak" playing. All of this is done to make you feel up-beat and comfortable. The longer you stay, the more you will spend. Contrast that with some dingy shops that you know. In the same way, some football clubs will paint their changing rooms in different colours - red for the home team, as it is activating and arousing; and blue for the away team, as it is relaxing and calming.

Blue is for serenity, green for harmony and peace, pink instills warmth and cosiness. All of these, especially if in muted tints, are ideal of bedrooms, although blue and green may produce too cold an atmosphere. On the other hand bright and vibrant colours such as yellows and reds will rev us up and keep us awake. The effects are subtle and certainly not conscious, but even so are very real.

The lighting is also important. Not surprisingly, bright lights keep us awake. So too, does light with a "cold" or bluish tinge - such as from fluorescent lights. This is, after all, the lighting of the early morning sun. On the other hand, the twilight sun is full of warm shades of orange and red. So the light from a dim bulb or, better still, from a candle, oil lamp, or natural fire, will be much more relaxing. Combine these with pink furnishings, soft slow music, the sound of waves on the beach ....

There is one other feature of natural flames that makes it so relaxing - it flickers. Typically, in fact, if flickers at a rate of about 6-7 Hz. The brain tends to entrain to this frequency, which produces the very relaxed state of "theta wave" activity.

How do we get around not putting a candle, oil light or open fire in a child's bedroom? One way is to use electric bulbs that flicker. There are also fiber optic lamps available that create a low level light, changing from one colour to another. The slow, gentle changes are relaxing, assuming that they aren't too bright. Some children like to sleep in a completely dark room. This is when the thick curtains will come in handy to screen out late night and early morning summer sun.

Since it's pretty unlikely that a parent would wish to put candles or oil lamps in a child's room, there are other options to consider. You can find fiber optic lamps that are very relaxing, even if they don't flicker as low as 7 Hz. They do, however, change colour slowly and the level of light is very low. The changing colours and soft light are so calming that they should be very helpful in getting your child off to sleep. Also available are lights that flicker so as to resemble a small flame. There are some children who prefer to sleep in a totally darkened room. If this is the case in your family, consider the heavy curtains that block twilight and early morning sun.

We often close our windows in winter and leave the heat on. This cuts down on outside noises, but also keeps out fresh air. The heat dries out the air as well, in turn drying out our nasal passages. When we have stuffy noses and air, we will usually sleep poorly. Even opening the window a crack will help.

Not having some fresh air to breathe at night can be interrupting to sleep. Think about opening a window, even if it's just a tiny bit. Too many people close all the windows and leave the heat running at night. Not only does it get close and too warm, lack of humidity dries out nasal passages. When we are uncomfortable, especially when it comes to breathing, we tend to sleep poorly and awaken often.

Waking during the night. It is normal to wake or almost wake several times during the night. The trick is to get back to sleep again. All of the above will increase the chances of this. Along with this it is important not to reinforce a behavior pattern of waking up during the night by giving it a lot of attention. Infants and young children especially will often cry or make other noises when they wake. Do not immediately rush in to comfort them - this will only wake them up more, and reinforce the pattern of waking in the night. If you leave them alone, most will gradually settle and go back to sleep by themselves. Initially this may take some time, as they are used to getting your attention, but gradually, if you stay firm, this period of time will get shorter.

Of course these are a million other ways to help your child to sleep. Feel free to experiment to find what works for you.

I wish you peaceful nights and happy dreams.

Article Source: http://www.uberarticles.com/articles


For more parenting advice by author Dr. Noel Swanson, why not visit his parenting advice website and get his free newsletter?

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