How can parents improve their teen's sleep hygiene?

Hi community,

If you relate to this GIF and say it to your teen more than three times a week, keep reading for tips on assisting them with better sleep hygiene. Keep reading and take what you need.

Sleep tends to be an underrated aspect of brain development and growth. Many teenagers need more hours of sleep than they believe and then most people believe. Studies show that teenagers, on average, need between 8 to 10 hours of sleep. Research also shows that teens fare better in academic settings when they can naturally wake up; nevertheless, that is not the type of society that we live in.

Creating a sleep routine is an effective way to help your teenager get into a ritual, allowing them to sleep easier and be more productive during waking hours. If your teen is engaged in sports, this will also help their body recover. So, let's jump into these ritual ideas.

One of my favorite tools for understanding sleep was understanding what a sleep

cycle was. A sleep cycle is a full period of time during which your brain can get into a rem cycle of sleep. Understanding sleep cycles will help you navigate how to get complete cycles of sleep, which will help you feel more rested when you wake versus sleeping out of the cycle. Here is an example of a sleep calculator to help you and your teen calculate the best time to either go to sleep or the best time to wake up in the morning. For example, if you know you have to be up at 6:30 am, this calculator will tell you the ideal time to go to sleep, and knowing that it can take up to 15 minutes to fall asleep, you can use your ritual to prepare yourself to

be in bed and fall asleep within that time frame.

Once you know what time your teen needs to go to bed, you can reverse work the ritual by creating a set routine to do every night to ensure restful sleep. A ritual, by nature, is something that you do at a determined frequency, and in this case, it would be daily. A sleep ritual lets you know how to prepare your body for rest. As you create your ritual, your body will adjust to associating the things you do with sleep. As time passes, your teen will be connected to the lights for the bed, or if your teen loves LED lights, red light means time for bed.

Below, I will share different things that you and your teen can do to create a ritual. Pick and choose what might work for you, your house, your family culture, and stick to it. Don't create a ritual that has too many steps or isn't simple enough to do daily with success. If you aren't going to be able to maintain it, I would prefer you to start with two things: Master two things and add another after a week of success.