Falling asleep comes naturally to many of us, but for many more it is not an easy task to do so. For me, sleep comes pretty easy, but that could be because at the end of the day, I’m pretty exhausted from a work at home job on top of all the household during work tasks that manage to overwhelm my stay at home as a work from home mom. of 3 energetic children. But that is another article for another day. Right now, this article is about how to get your picky eater to sleep better.

So, as I was saying, I fell asleep a few seconds after my head hit the pillow. My son who is 7 years old is the same. As soon as he is horizontal, he is asleep. and he continues to sleep for the rest of the night and he has to be awakened in the morning from his deep sleep. He wakes up fresh as an apple ready to take on the world and he does.

My oldest daughter, who is around 12 years old, on the other hand, has major problems falling asleep. She might be dead tired and haven’t slept a wink all day, but she still can’t fall asleep without a big battle. She sometimes falls asleep easily, but other times she keeps tossing and turning. It was one of those days that I found her wide awake when I went to see her.

He had worked hard to finish his homework after coming home from basketball practice. She figured that, since she’d had such a long day, she’d be sound asleep by the time she checked on her. But she said that even though she really wanted to sleep and was dead tired, she couldn’t fall asleep. She said that she was closing her eyes, but they didn’t seem to want to stay closed and she had spent the half hour in bed tossing and turning and getting even more tired.

“I want to sleep so much, Mom, and I’m dead tired, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to fall asleep…” she lamented.

I told him the time, saying that it was already past bedtime. He does not like to sleep and tries to push sleep as far away as possible. Naps are definitely a no-no for her and no matter how tired, she pushes those extra few minutes into hours.

“Well, you have exhausted your body too much by not sleeping on time. As such, your body is completely stressed…”

“I’m not stressed…” she complained.

I explained that stress doesn’t have to be mental or emotional. It could also be physical.

“When your body gets too tired, that means you’re stressed too. When your body gets stressed, it releases a hormone called cortisol into your bloodstream.”

I checked her to make sure my reading didn’t lull her to sleep. (yes, that’s also a good technique to get your kids to sleep 😉 she was still wide awake.

“Cortisol is a hormone that the body makes when it feels danger. Stress makes the body think it’s in danger, and once the hormone is released, the whole body and mind are alerted to standby. It’s like if you were being attacked by a lion and as such every part of your body and mind is ready to start running as fast as you can to get out of the way of the big cat.Your body doesn’t want you to sleep at a time like that. Then he makes sure you don’t fall asleep. That’s what’s happening to you right now!”

She looked at me with wide eyes. She is a very intelligent girl and as such she seemed to understand what she was telling her.

“Then what do I do?” she asked.

“You need to relax and tell your body that there is no lion lurking anywhere and that it is safe for you to fall asleep.”

“How can I do that?” She continued.

I don’t know where or how it came to me, but the words of my yoga instructor came to mind. In our Vinayasa Yoga class we are encouraged to disconnect the mind from everyday things. We are asked to accomplish this arduous task by concentrating on our breath following the ujjayi breathing technique. This is a form of breathing where we breathe through the nose. Most of you will be laughing, thinking that this is where we normally breathe from. Well, if you pay attention to the way you breathe, many of you will notice that the mouth comes into play in our breathing process. For some of us it plays a major role and for many of us it plays a minor but noticeable role.

The goal of ujjayi breathing is to keep your mouth completely closed while breathing. So you’re not talking or biting your lip or eating anything. Your mouth is completely closed. You begin to breathe through your nose, and more importantly, you become aware of it by concentrating on your breath. Slowly inhale and exhale deeper and deeper.

Start by exhaling all the air in your lungs and then a little more. You keep exhaling until one cannot exhale any more and then what follows is a natural deep inhalation. You continue doing this until the inhalations and exhalations are very, very deep. Also, when you exhale, you should contract your throat so that when you exhale, you make an audible sound. Then you prevent your mind from wandering by paying attention to your breath. Slowly but surely, you will realize that you have changed all the thoughts in your mind and all you are thinking about is the breathing exercise. All of your senses will be attuned to your breath and you will slowly but surely have blacked out out of your own breath!

I told my daughter to do the same. She listened very carefully because she really wanted to sleep, the poor thing. She began to breathe through her nose and had a little difficulty doing so because she mainly breathes through her mouth. I corrected her and soon she was breathing deeply through her nose. He could feel her muscles relax as her breath got deeper and deeper. That’s another good side effect of ujjayi breathing: it slowly relaxes the muscles: the neck muscles, the back muscles, the jaws, the tongue, etc., until the whole body relaxes. Soon her body began to loosen and she murmured that she should take her with me to my yoga class. Within minutes she was completely unconscious and sleeping like a baby. I patted myself on the back and also kicked myself for not thinking of this brilliant idea sooner. It would have saved my daughter from many troublesome nights trying to fall asleep.

I can’t wait for the youngest of my brood to be old enough to understand and practice this technique. Yes, he also has trouble falling asleep. I can’t wait to impart this precious sleeping technique to him and make his life easier!