Sleep - For Children and Young People
Sleep and rest are really important to help your body and brain – sleep helps your brain to remember, helps your body recover and grow, it helps your mood, and even your immune system. At night, your body releases special chemicals called hormones to help with all of these things. When you are ill, you need to sleep more to help your body recover. Even when you are feeling better, you will often need to sleep and rest a bit more too.
Sometimes, if you are ill or living with physical symptoms, your sleep routine can turn “upside down” – you can feel really tired all the time and might sleep in the day, and not be able to sleep at night. This can be frustrating when you are starting to feel better and you are still finding it difficult to sleep at night. It is important to know that this is normal, and it can happen to anyone.
If you have physical symptoms that last a long time (whether these have started after an illness or not), sometimes your sleep can be affected by these symptoms, and your symptoms can make it hard to go to sleep. This can be really tricky! There are different tips and tricks you can try to help get your sleep back on track.
Things that can help:
- Bedtime routine – having a set of activities you do every night, at the same time, in the same order, like brushing your teeth, turning your phone/tablet off, reading a book or doing something relaxing, and getting into bed. Doing things at the same time and in the same order can help “train” your brain to know it’s time to go to sleep, and can help you fall asleep quicker.
- Get up at the same time every day – this also helps your brain to learn when you need to be awake and when you need to be asleep. It’s also really helpful to make sure you can do the things which are important to you, like school or seeing friends. Having a lie-in can be really tempting, but it confuses your body clock and can actually make sleeping harder.
- Beds are for sleeping! It’s really tempting to lie on your bed and watch TV, scroll on your phone, or chat with your friends, but this makes it really hard for your brain to learn that going to bed means going to sleep. Only using your bed for sleeping means that your brain associates bed with sleep.
- A good sleep environment – make sure your room is dark, cool, quiet and comfy. Try not to have any clocks, lights, TV, or phones near you or facing you, as these can be distracting and make it harder to go to sleep. Having soft toys or cosy blankets can be a nice way to help you feel safe and relaxed in bed.
- No napping! Although it can be really hard not to nap if you’re really tired in the day, what we know is that naps can make it much harder to sleep in the night. If you absolutely have to nap, do it before 3pm, and don’t nap for any longer than 30 minutes.
- Quiet, calm, relaxing activities. It’s a good idea to avoid loud or exciting activities before bed, as this can make your body and brain think it’s not bedtime. Pick something nice that you enjoy, but keeps you calm – like colouring, reading, or listening to audiobooks.
There are loads more tips on getting a good night’s sleep on these websites: