Falling asleep comes naturally to many of us, but for many more it is not an easy task. For me, sleep is pretty easy, but that could be because at the end of the day, I’m pretty exhausted from a work at home job plus the whole 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 fussy child 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’s horizontal, he’s 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 not sleep all day, but she still can’t fall asleep without a big battle. She sometimes falls asleep easily, but other times she just 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 guessed that, since she’d had such a long day, she’d be fast 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 really want to sleep, Mom, and I’m dead tired, but no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to get to sleep…” she lamented.

I told him the time, saying that it was past bedtime. He does not like to sleep and tries to push sleep away as far as possible. Naps are definitely a no-no for her and no matter how tired she pushes those few extra minutes that turn 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 too stressed. When your body gets stressed, it releases a hormone called cortisol into your bloodstream.”

I checked her to make sure my reading wasn’t making her sleepy. (yes, that’s a good technique to get your kids to sleep too 😉 she was STILL wide awake.

“Cortisol is a hormone that the body makes when it feels in 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 it 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 was looking at me with wide eyes. She is a very intelligent girl and as such, she seemed to understand what she was saying.

“Then what do I do?” she asked.

“You need to relax and tell your body that there is no lion lurking anywhere and 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 our minds from everyday things. We are asked to perform this arduous task by concentrating on our breathing by following the ujjayi breathing technique. This is a form of breathing in which 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 large 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 start to breathe through your nose, and more importantly, you become aware of it by concentrating on your breathing. Slowly inhale and exhale deeper and deeper.

Begin by exhaling all the air from 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 to do this until the inhalations and exhalations are very, very deep. Also, when you exhale, you need to contract your throat so that when you exhale, it makes an audible sound. Then you stop 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 your senses will be attuned to your breathing and slowly but surely you will 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, poor thing. She started breathing through her nose and had a bit of a hard time doing it because she mainly breathes through her mouth. I corrected her and she was soon breathing deeply through her nose. He could feel her muscles relax as her breathing became deeper and deeper. That’s another good side effect of ujjayi breathing: slowly relax your muscles: neck muscles, back muscles, jaws, tongue, etc., until the whole body is relaxed. Soon her body started to go limp and she muttered 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 troubled nights trying to get to sleep.

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 sleep technique to him and make his life easier!