When I was still in the throes of sleep deprivation when my son was a toddler and never slept , my grandmother made a comment that has stuck with me for years. She said that kids never had sleep problems when she was a young parent. I've always wondered about that. We all slept as kids, and our parents worried about a lot of things but not about getting us to sleep. Why are there thousands of books these days instructing parents how to teach their kids to sleep? Isn't it a biological imperative? Why wasn't my kid just sleeping and letting me sleep? Was it something in the water?
I've learned a lot about sleep over the years of being a parent to young boys and not getting much of it. One thing that has become obvious, especially as they get older, is that the more time they get running around outside, the easier it is at bedtime. Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda both emphasize the importance of getting exercise, which they describe as moving your Qi, every day to improve sleep. As with a lot of common knowledge, a new study has come out of New Zealand proving that the more activity kids get, the easier it is for them to fall asleep and stay asleep. Dr. Ed A. Mitchell of the University of Auckland in New Zealand, the study's lead author, shared with Reuters Health that up to one in six parents of school-aged children report that their child has difficulty falling asleep. The study consisted of 591 seven-year-olds wearing an activity-measuring device around their waist for 24 hours. The results, now filed in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, showed that most kids took about 26 minutes to fall asleep, yet the more activity they did during the day, the less time it took to get to sleep.
It's amazing when studies show such number-specific correlations, and in this study they showed that "one hour of vigorous activity (equivalent to running) reduced the time to fall asleep by almost 6 minutes." Furthermore, for every hour a child spent each day being inactive, it too them 3 minutes longer to fall asleep.
Now, I know from personal experience that while this is all true, there are also many other factors involved in whether a kid sleeps well or not. They could be overstimulated from TV or video games or sugar. They could have an undetected food allergy that amps up their nervous system. Still, there is no denying that running your child ragged will help them pass out from exhaustion at bedtime.
One study I'd like to see would measure how much better a child sleeps after running around outside as opposed to inside. Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda both teach that moving your Qi outside is especially effective because it oxygenates the cells and calms the nervous system. There is now a national education program devoted to this purpose. My son's school is part of a national movement called No Child Left Inside. Read this carefully, I am not talking about George W. Bush's program to force educators to teach for testing. The No Child Left Inside movement is about keeping kids outside to reap the benefits of fresh air and of connecting with nature. Studies show that kids learn better and can pay more attention in the classroom if they've had significant outdoor time. Kids develop their own way of discovering and learning in non-guided exploration in nature. I get really upset when I hear about a school that cuts out recess as a disciplinary consequence. How self-defeating! Kids who act up in class need more time for recess, not less!
I'm always glad to see a "scientific" study confirm what many of us consider common sense. Having a PhD publish a report about the importance of keeping our kids active might just convince some parents to turn off the TV and computer and get outside with their kids to run and bike for the afternoon. Maybe even some schools will increase the recess time available for kids instead of putting them in detention! So let's create kids who can say the same thing as our grandparents did - that they had to walk 10 miles uphill each way to school every day!