[00:00:02.680] – Speaker 1
Well, hey, everyone! I’m Chris Tompkins, and welcome to the Shaping Our World podcast. My goal is to invite you into a conversation that will leave you more confident in understanding and inspiring the young people in your life. Each episode, we talk with leading thinkers and practitioners and offer relevant resources to dive deeper into the world of our youth today. Today we’re joined by Alanna McGinn. Alanna is the founder and lead sleep expert at Good Night Sleep Site, one of North America’s leading resources for family sleep support. She’s also a certified sleep consultant through the Family Sleep Institute. And as a mother of three, she knows what this is all about in her own home. And in fact, that was part of how she got into this field to begin with. Alanna is also the host of the top-rated This Girl Loves Sleep podcast and the author of This Baby Loves Sleep. As a trusted media sleep expert, she’s been featured in, and I gotta get this list right, Forbes, Maclean’s, Today’s Parent, and Prevention magazine. She regularly appears on CityLine, The Marilyn Dennis Show, Breakfast Television, CBC Radio, Your Morning, CP24, to name just a few.
[00:01:26.240] – Speaker 1
Her work now extends beyond children to support adult as well, helping all the family think about what it means to be well-rested and how we can think about sleep as a contributor to healthy thriving. I know sleep’s an interesting topic. It’s popped up in the media a little bit more lately, even for adults, and we think about it for our kids all the time. And so I can’t wait for you to hear what Alanna has to offer on this really important topic for raising kids today. Let’s dive into the conversation with Alanna. Alanna, it’s great to have you.
[00:02:06.360] – Speaker 2
Thanks so much for having me.
[00:02:07.960] – Speaker 1
Yeah, thanks for joining. I love the topic we’re going to get into today, and we’re going to hear a little bit more. But let’s dive into just beyond the bio that we just went through. Let’s get to know you a little bit better. What shaped your world when you were growing up?
[00:02:21.710] – Speaker 2
That is a great question. So, I was surrounded by entrepreneurs in my life in different ways. One was my dad owned his own business and was an amazing dad and a very hardworking business owner. So, I was always intrigued by that. And my mum in some ways also ran her own business. I grew up with a home daycare at my house. So, surrounded by children that weren’t my siblings. I do have a sibling. I have an older sister. But you know, there was always kids in my house. And it really wasn’t until I was an adult and I was running my own business did I really give thought to how my mum shaped her own business, right? So you don’t really think of that as like running your own business because it was in the house. It wasn’t like a brick-and-mortar daycare. But it was running my own business because of that and being surrounded by that was something that I always knew I wanted to do. Did I know at the time it was going to be sleep-related? Of course not. You don’t really think about sleep health until you have a kid.
[00:03:23.970] – Speaker 1
Right, right.
[00:03:25.330] – Speaker 2
But I always knew I wanted to run my own business. I just wasn’t really sure in what capacity yet.
[00:03:30.550] – Speaker 1
Yeah, so it’s interesting, like, how as we grow up, the things that, you know, the environment we’re living in does really shape us down the road. But before we get to, like, your work stuff, which you kind of highlighted, let us get to know you a little bit. What’s shaping your world today? What are some things that you’re interested in that you spend time doing when you’re not running your business?
[00:03:50.400] – Speaker 2
Yeah, so I am staring 50 in the face. I just turned 49. So, I have 3 teenagers, one who just finished her first year of university and 2 that just entered high school. They just are in grade 9 this year. Within the past 5 years, my life took a dramatic shift. So, I went through a divorce. So, there’s been a lot of change, right? A lot of hard change but positive change overall. So what’s shaping my world now is kind of redefining my life. And I think a lot of women my age go through that, making sure that I am including more about myself in my day-to-day than just everybody around me. I’m very fortunate where I’m in an amazing new relationship. I say new, but in the past 2 years and building a new home. And making sure that I’m starting to— I feel like the 16-year-old me is now the 49-year-old me, but I’m able to look at that life in a little different light and enjoy it a lot more.
[00:04:53.250] – Speaker 1
That’s great. Yeah, we could probably spend a whole other podcast helping—
[00:04:57.130] – Speaker 2
a whole other podcast for sure—
[00:04:58.560] – Speaker 1
folks navigate the similar season of life that you’re in. But let’s, let’s stick to our topic because I’m really interested in this. Because tell us about like your business and your work. You alluded to it a little bit, but tell me now what you do and how that is connected to shaping the lives of families and young kids?
[00:05:16.350] – Speaker 2
Yeah, so I started— so Good Night Sleep Site is my company. I started Good Night Sleep Site almost 20 years ago when I had my first child. Again, you don’t really understand how much sleep is going to be affected until you bring your baby home, right? And the industry that I’m in, if we look at, you know, babies, toddlers, and even teens, And, you know, we hear the term sleep training and sleep consulting and things like that. That was a very new industry when I was first— it actually didn’t exist when I first had my daughter. You were reading books and you were talking to your mum and your mother-in-law and your friends and getting them to help you help your child sleep better. And I was very fortunate to be able to do that. And when I was then pregnant with my twins, I knew I wanted to work from home to be able to stay home with my kids and got certified as a sleep consultant and started Good Night Sleep Site. I remember hitting publish on my website while they were in their bouncy seats, just kind of staring at me. And my 3.5-year-old was running around the house.
[00:06:15.000] – Speaker 2
And then have since now grown Good Night Sleep Site to have consultants throughout Canada and the US. We help babies to adults. I’ve now also started AlannaMcGinn.com where I specialise in midlife women and sleep and stress management. So focusing on helping them sleep better through mid— a lot of midlife transitions. Yeah, that’s how I kind of started and that’s where I’m at now.
[00:06:38.890] – Speaker 1
I love this topic because it’s one that if you’re, you know, paying attention to on the socials and all the ads that come your way and, you know, I think sleep is becoming, well, it maybe always has, but for me I think it’s like something that’s coming up more and more often as like an indicator of wellbeing and health and, I think what I’d love to dive into right away is your approach kind of looks at this across generations. Like, I think when we think of sleep training or support, we do often think about newborns and babies, right? But through the Good Night Sleep Site and your work, you kind of look at children, toddlers, middle age, teenagers, and then not just like individuals, but like a whole family. What shifts when you start looking at being a well-rested family unit? Like, tell me a bit about that, that holistic approach.
[00:07:34.410] – Speaker 2
Yeah, and I love that you said well-rested family unit because at the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to. And you had mentioned before, you know, sleep is starting to become more of a conversation. I’ve definitely seen a shift in that probably within the past, I would say, you know, 5 to 10 years where sleep is starting to become valued in the same way that physical health is and nutritional health is and, you know, emotional health, which is all important. I always look at the pillars of health. So if we look at, you know, our 4 key pillars: exercise, physical, nutritional, connexion, I think is very important, and sleep. And not just because it’s what I do, but I do look at sleep as the foundation of all the pillars because no matter what age you are, when we are— well, maybe not necessarily babies, but for our teens and our adults, when we are not putting focus into our sleep health, we don’t have the energy to move our bodies. We don’t have the energy to work out. We don’t make great nutritional choices, right? We tend to crave more carbs and more sugars, and our body isn’t able to metabolise its food as well or digest its food as well.
[00:08:39.550] – Speaker 2
Connexion. I mean, we all— I know what I’m like when I haven’t had a good night’s sleep. I’m not always a joy to be around, nor is anyone, right? You’re more quick-tempered, more irritable. You might have quicker reactions than perhaps you do when you’ve had a good night of sleep. So sleep is a very important component for the entire family unit. I like that we are seeing more conversations about it and people are starting to include sleep health in their overall health and wellbeing. And I think that is so important for a family unit to function in a healthy way because when we are all well rested, well rested, we are just better for ourselves and better for everybody around us.
[00:09:22.130] – Speaker 1
I wanna dive into some of the specifics around that, but I wonder if maybe broadly, so if we’re not well rested as a family unit, like why, why aren’t we prioritising sleep? Like what do we miss when we’re kind of not paying attention to it? What are some of the barriers to being well rested?
[00:09:42.770] – Speaker 2
I think the biggest barrier is understanding your own personal sleep needs. The reason why we don’t necessarily think of sleep as a health benefit, as perhaps we do other things, is because we know when we’re not moving our body, right? We can see when our teens are not moving our body or our kids are not getting enough physical activity or we’re not getting enough because we’re just not doing it. So we know that that’s happening. We know the foods that we’re putting in our mouths or our kids are putting in their mouths. We see it. We sleep. We all sleep. So sometimes we don’t realise that we’re sleeping, but we’re not necessarily getting the right quantity and quality of sleep that we should be getting for overall health and wellness. So, you know, there’s the, you know, the term “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Sleep is kind of always put on the last, the bottom of the list, right? The bottom of the thing that we should be really focusing on. And we live in a world, and I’m sure we’ll talk about this, I won’t get into it too much right now, but we live in a world where we are always connected.
[00:10:44.110] – Speaker 2
We are always on. We are always consuming. And that affects our sleep for sure. It affects our stress levels. This is why very much when I’m working with the tween and teenage into the adult age, there’s really a tie-in between sleep and stress. It’s a conversation that I’m having all the time because when our stress levels are higher, our sleep is lower. It’s just it. Sleep is very finicky. So when there’s something off in our life, physically, emotionally, mentally, it’s going to affect our sleep, hands down. So I think the biggest obstacle with sleep for many of us is just not fully understanding our own personal sleep needs and that we need to sleep better.
[00:11:25.400] – Speaker 1
Maybe this is generalisation, but what are some of the recommendations around how long, like what constitutes well rest? I know there’s more to it than just hours of sleep, but we kind of defined it across And I think in like that 8 to 18, because I want to start to get into, yeah, you know, middle, middle-aged children and tweens and teens a little bit for some parents to understand what’s going on. But what are sort of the recommendations around what good sleep would look like for them?
[00:11:54.080] – Speaker 2
Yeah, so I mean, in terms of quantity for that age group, when you’re looking at anywhere between 8 to 18 years of age, you’re looking still anywhere between 9 to 11 hours of sleep per night. So, you know, children can’t function on the average 7 to 8 hours that we should be getting. But 7 to 8, I always say 7 to 8 hours-ish for adults. You know, you could expand that to 6 to 9. I think you can live a well-rested life and, you know, some people can function fine. Again, we all have our own personal baseline of sleep, our own personal sleep needs. Some individuals can function fine on 6 hours. Some individuals function fine on 9. So bringing that back down to our kids, even when I say 9 to 11, you know, you might have a child who needs good quality 11 hours of sleep or good or can function fine on, say, 9 to 8 hours of sleep per night. In terms of quality, I like to not get too into the specifics about the quality, the science behind the quality of sleep, because my beliefs are it’s really just how does your sleep affect your day-to-day?
[00:12:59.000] – Speaker 2
How do you feel? Throughout the day? I always say none of us wake up like Snow White, right? We’re not waking up singing with the birds and like, that just doesn’t happen. But generally, how do you feel when you wake up? Do you feel like you’ve had a good night of sleep? How do you feel throughout the day? Are you showing, you know, and not necessarily that 2 PM slump because we can all feel that and that could be blood sugar levels, that could be for a few different reasons, but are you showing excessive daytime sleepiness? Are you dragging your feet? Is your sleep health starting to affect your other pillars where, you know, you don’t want to move your body. You’re not making great nutritional choices. It could be affecting— if there’s mental health issues, it could be heightening the symptoms of your mental health issues. How are you dealing with people? You know, are you quicker to react? Are you confrontational? Are you more irritable? That’s a sign that even if you’re getting your, say, 9 to 10 hours or your child’s getting their 9 to 11 hours of sleep, perhaps they’re not getting the right quality of sleep that they should be getting.
[00:13:57.190] – Speaker 2
So that’s perhaps we might need to change, make some changes, some lifestyle changes to get them better quality of sleep.
[00:14:04.280] – Speaker 1
There’s a point of time, and for families it’s kind of very different, where parents move from like dictating bedtime, like you need to go to bed now, like here’s your time to— we’re shutting the lights out, to letting kids kind of start to navigate their own sleep. How do we as parents promote a good night’s sleep or being well-rested with kids that without kind of coming in and saying the lights are off right now? Like, what are some tips and tools for parents to really get kids to think about having a good night’s sleep?
[00:14:38.380] – Speaker 2
Yeah, I have to say, you know, having 3 teens and, you know, going through the sleep training years and the nap training and all of the training, I would say that shift from the moment where your kids get to an age where they are now starting to go to bed later than you is a shift. And it’s one that was really hard on me at first, you know, because I can’t stay up as late as my kids. And there’s reasons why, and we can get into this, reasons why your kids are staying up too late, right? Whether it be biologically, whether it be because of their lifestyle, for sure. And that happens in that tween and teen stage that I think parents also need to understand. But I think the biggest thing that parents can do and something that I’ve obviously done in my home because it’s what I do for a living. My kids know that is we have to have those conversations about sleep health. So, you know, we are talking to our kids about eating better and the importance of exercise and the importance of treating others with kindness and all of these important things that we’re obviously trying to instil values into our children.
[00:15:35.290] – Speaker 2
But how often are parents talking to our kids about not just that you have to go to bed, but why do you have to go to bed? Why is it important to get a good night of sleep? How do you feel when you haven’t had a good night of sleep? How does mum or dad feel when they haven’t had a good night’s sleep? How does your, you know, your household pet feel when they haven’t had a good night’s sleep? Like really bringing the conversation down to that and for allowing them to understand the importance of sleep. I talk to a lot of colleges and universities and even high schools, and that’s a common conversation that we’re having, right, is not just that you have to sleep, but why, you know, what happens when we’re sleeping well and when we’re getting a great night of sleep and why that’s important for our overall health and well-being. So I think if that conversation is happening, and I don’t say regularly, but, you know, it’s a comfortable conversation that we’re having in our home, those are the kids that are then going to bed later than you that are understanding why they need that bedtime.
[00:16:31.970] – Speaker 2
You know, my kids do go to bed later than me, but I trust that they’re going to bed at an adequate hour and waking up when they should be in the morning because it’s conversations that we have. So I always tell parents like, sit down and have that, what I call a family sleep meeting, where you can sit down as a family and discuss sleep goals. ‘Cause likely if a child needs to work on the sleep, parents probably need to work on their sleep as well, right? So how can we do that as a family? What are some sleep goals that we can all work together on? Could that be being more consistent with our bedtime? Could that be maybe removing tech from the bedroom? Could that be understanding sleep more and understanding the science behind sleep more and why it’s so beneficial for our health? So having those conversations help.
[00:17:14.960] – Speaker 1
You kind of opened the door a little bit, so I wanna push it through a little bit. Can you maybe help us understand what are some of the reasons why kids are kind of going to bed later or the sleep stuff you mentioned, there’s some biological and some lifestyle stuff, ’cause I think it’s really interesting. We did a research project on our staff a little while ago and looked at their impressions of leadership and work and all that. And one of the things that we realised is they value rest, but they will admit that they’re not getting as much rest as they could or should be getting. So it’s like they understand there’s this value transaction of, “I wish I could, but I don’t.” And we see that in our staff. It’s like, “I’m so tired.” And we’re like, “Well, why didn’t you go to bed earlier?” they’re on their day off and they wanna maximise all the time they have with their friends. And can you maybe help us understand that little bit as we get into that preteen, teenage, why it changes?
[00:18:11.120] – Speaker 2
Yeah, so I mean, if we look at the biology of it, this is often parents are kind of pulling out their hair because, or even kids, I mean, a lot of the teens that I work with, they want to go to bed earlier, but they can’t, right? And a lot of that is biologically, it’s harder for them. So what happens when they enter that tweener teen, when they enter that puberty stage? Melatonin is our natural sleep hormone. This is what helps sync our natural 24-hour clock. We all run off of circadian rhythms, off of a 24-hour clock. That clock shifts as our tween and teens go through puberty. So meaning their body, body starts preparing for sleep. Their melatonin is now released later at night. So you might want your tween or teen to go to bed still at 9 or 10 o’clock at night, but their body isn’t telling them to be sleepy and to go to bed until, say, 11 or 12 o’clock at night. So we gradually see that bedtime times start to push out later and later. Unfortunately, that biological timing and that shift doesn’t correspond with the time that they typically have to wake up for school.
[00:19:13.620] – Speaker 2
And, you know, there’s a lot of organisations in the US, in Canada that are trying to fight for later high school times because high school students have to get up a lot earlier than elementary students, right? So their body isn’t allowing them to fall asleep at a reasonable hour, but now they have to get up to catch their bus to get to school, to get to high school at a really early time. Other reasons why we’re seeing our tweens and teens go to bed later and later is we see an increase in homework, in extracurricular activities, in social life, like you just mentioned, right? They, you know, nothing is more important than a child and their friend circle and what’s going on in their social world. And that unfortunately definitely affects their sleep. We could see an increase in stress and anxieties with changes in schools and changes in social circles and changes in, you know, work. You know, I’m seeing a shift in the elementary homework and testing as opposed to the high school homework and testing just with my kids alone. They’re going through a lot of adult stresses that we see with our adults.
[00:20:13.820] – Speaker 2
So that’s definitely going to affect their sleep at night for sure.
[00:20:17.260] – Speaker 1
My daughter is 20 now, so we don’t have these conversations as much anymore. I wanna go back. I’m gonna enter you into a conversation my wife and I have, okay? It’s Saturday morning.
[00:20:27.780] – Speaker 2
Yeah.
[00:20:28.200] – Speaker 1
It’s 11 o’clock AM. And we look at each other and we’re like, oh, she’s still sleeping. Do you think we should get her up? Should we let her sleep? What would you guide us with? How do you answer that question as a parent?
[00:20:43.710] – Speaker 2
I have two 15-year-olds, so I get that. Here’s the thing. I don’t fight the small battles, right? So if my child, who is generally rested, you know, for the most part, isn’t sleeping in and missing a job, and when they are out there working, they’re functional human beings, and they want to sleep in on a weekend. I mean, listen, do I want them sleeping until 3 o’clock in the afternoon? No. But 11 AM, I don’t sweat that. They do them, you know what I mean? I, I always bring it back to, you know, this is, um, it’s an argument that parents will give to me when I bring up the high school start times, you know, that high schools should be pushed out later. And a lot of the pushback I get, well, that’s not the real world, you know, they’ll get one day they’re gonna have to get up early for work. Of course they are, I know that, you know. And when we were kids, does that now affect how we get up for work if we slept in until 11 AM? No, you learn responsibilities and you learn when you have to get up and you learn when you have these things.
[00:21:47.350] – Speaker 2
So if your daughter— and I’m sure she is because you’re lovely, so I’m sure she’s lovely— if for the most part she’s like a good kid, she’s responsible, she’s doing all the things, and she wants to sleep until 11:00 AM, I don’t, I don’t pick battles. I got 3 kids. I’m not picking every battle.
[00:22:03.190] – Speaker 1
Well, we all know there’s something— even when you’ve had a lot of regimented— you set alarms, you’re navigating bedtime— there is something, and you could tell me if this is accurate, there’s something that feels like a bit of a reset too, when you just sleep until your body tells you to get up, you know, and you kind of rest all the way through. So I think a weekend or Saturday, in my opinion, is— I do it sometimes myself, you know, I go past my normal bedtime and let my body wake me up on a Saturday or a Sunday.
[00:22:32.210] – Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, listen, routine is important. So if you have a child or you yourself, whoever’s listening, is struggling with sleep and sleep, you know, that you need to make some serious changes with your sleep. Having consistent bedtimes and wake times is important, right? Because it allows your body to fall asleep easier and wake up easier. So, you know, if you have a child who— I always like to equate the morning routine is actually probably more important than the bedtime routine for, for that age group and for our own age group. And the reason why that is, is because it really sets the tone in how we’re going to not only carry our stress throughout the day, but how we wake up in the morning is going to carry into how we go to bed at night. And what I mean by that is if you have a child who is struggling with sleep and who’s having difficulty falling asleep at night, sleeping through the night, we want to make sure that their sleep pressure, their sleep drive is strong. So sleeping in in the morning till 11 isn’t going to allow them to do that.
[00:23:26.540] – Speaker 2
So think of your sleep drive as a gas tank, right? Think of it, I call it a sleep tank. So when we wake up in the morning, whether we’ve had a good night of sleep or not, that tank is generally empty. So we need to now focus throughout the day on filling that tank. So whether that be filling our kids’ tank or filling our own tank. Ways to do that is by waking up consistently in the morning at a normal— I would say 80/20 rule, right? 80% of the time waking up at that consistent time, that’s going to start putting that gas in the tank. Immersing yourself in that natural light, right? We’re going into a season where that’s going to help, right? Where the sun’s going to be out earlier. We’re going to get more natural light. That’s going to help regulate our melatonin and our cortisol levels. Give a good balance, put gas in that tank. Moving your body, that physical activity. The problem that we’re seeing, just a sidebar, the problem that we’re seeing now with kids is, you know, the TikTok trend of bed rotting, right? Lying in bed, surfing on the phone, doing all the things that’s not giving them the natural light they need.
[00:24:24.340] – Speaker 2
That’s not giving them the physical activity that they need to put that gas in the tank. So when I say pick your battles, this is for, like I said, a generally well-rested child who doesn’t have any big sleep issues that you feel you really need to work on. If you do, letting them sleep until 11 AM on a Saturday isn’t likely going to help their sleep the Sunday night and going into the week as well. So it depends on the child and the situation.
[00:24:51.020] – Speaker 1
Yeah, I actually really think that’s insightful to think about, you know, the morning controls the bedtime. And you often think that kind of the other way around. That’s really helpful. I like that. That’s a good— framework to think about how your morning routine actually impacts that same day’s evening routine and bedtime routine.
[00:25:10.580] – Speaker 2
That’s, uh, that’s right.
[00:25:11.540] – Speaker 1
That’s really insightful. You’ve mentioned screens. We started to get into, you know, TikTok and that. Um, I want to talk a little bit because technology is a big thing, right? Especially for parents to navigate and talk through. There’s every post or article or something coming out about technology and kids. Can you help us understand just the role technology plays in being well-rested as a whole, sort of that integration. I don’t want to just say the negative impacts, but how they kind of interplay together. And what advice would you give to parents? How do we have these conversations about appropriate use of technology as it pertains to, you know, bedtime routine or a morning routine, or just that sleep, overall being well-rested?
[00:25:59.670] – Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, tech is probably— we are a sleep-deprived society, 100%, whether we’re talking about kids or adults. And tech is probably the biggest sleep buster in our home for sure. And maybe not for the reason why you think. We do have to factor in the bright screens, the blue light. Think of your brain or your child’s brain as having that sleep switch, right? Being in front of those bright screens right before you go to bed, falling asleep to the TV, falling asleep to your phone, as many kids do. It’s turning that sleep switch off in their brain. So, yes, they’re falling asleep eventually and sleeping through, but it’s junk sleep. It’s not the proper quality sleep that they could be getting. It’s like when you were eating junk food. Sure, we’re eating junk food, but it’s not the great nutritional choices that we should be making. Right. But more importantly, how tech affects sleep is what are we consuming? And like I said before, we are always consuming. We’re always consuming information, whether it be good information or bad information that’s going to affect our stress levels or not, but it’s going to make our mind very busy.
[00:26:59.910] – Speaker 2
So that, in my opinion, is probably the bigger issue because there’s a lot of devices now and things that you can use like blue blocking glasses. And, you know, there’s a lot of screen— I don’t have the words right now, but like the screen, Apple does it too, where you can—
[00:27:13.690] – Speaker 1
Philtres.
[00:27:14.890] – Speaker 2
Philtres. Thank you. That is the perfect word that you can use. But it’s more about what is our child consuming? So I say this as a professional, but I also say this as a mum of 3. I know how difficult it is to create boundaries around tech and teens. If you are listening to this and your child hasn’t dived into the world of tech yet, meaning they don’t have an Instagram account, they don’t have, you know, certain platforms and things like that, they may not even have a device yet. Start those rules right from the start. That’s the best thing that you can do. And that’s again included in that family sleep meeting that I was saying. So this is where you’re sitting down as a family, you’re going through the rules. So whether it’s a tech curfew, 60 minutes before you go to bed, all devices are plugged in outside of the bedroom, or we take the devices, or however you want to do it, right? A lot of parents that I work with will either— it depends on the child, right? The child is good to put the device down and not use it.
[00:28:09.520] – Speaker 2
Parents maybe take the device. You can put time limits on Wi-Fi settings. Like, there’s a lot of things that you can do to help control that, but make those rules right from the start and be consistent with them. But as parents, we should also be modelling that ourselves. So if we’re lying in bed on Instagram and TikTok and telling our kids not to do it, that’s going to be a harder battle, right? For parents whose kids are— have already dived into this world and now you’re trying to create those boundaries, that is still possible to do. Again, it’s sitting down and having those conversations on how tech affects your sleep, why sleep is so important, you know, everything that we discussed prior and creating a plan and goals that you can do together as a family. My stance on tech, though, is not necessarily the same as maybe other sleep experts where the blue light is an issue, the— what we’re consuming is an issue, but tech is also something that can really help us sleep better. And what I mean by that is there’s a lot of amazing apps that you can use, mindfulness apps, meditation apps, breathwork apps.
[00:29:15.070] – Speaker 2
I’m a huge proponent of breathwork for stress release. But I also think if your teen wants to— you have a 20-year-old, does she have like a feel-good show that she watches? She’ll watch it over and over and over. What’s her show?
[00:29:29.240] – Speaker 1
She’s Friday Night Lights is an example of one. She’s got a bunch of them. Yeah.
[00:29:33.360] – Speaker 2
So my kids are Modern Family. Like, I think they’ve watched the entire all seasons, like just over and over again, right? So listen, if you’ve had a really bad day at school, or you’ve had a fight with your friend, or you’ve had a fight with your boyfriend or girlfriend, and you just want to watch like an episode of Modern Family before you go to bed because it’s going to help you, you know, release some of that stress and just calm your body and mind down, I’m all for it. I have no issues for it. This isn’t me giving your kid permission to like surf TikTok till 2 o’clock in the morning. But I also think having like having your child understand to set those boundaries, you know, the friends that you can FaceTime with before you go to bed that are going to make you feel feel better. We all have those friends, and your kids have those friends that are not going to make you feel better, right? That are going to say certain things that increase that stress and that worry and that social anxiety, right? Stay away from those friends at bedtime.
[00:30:21.360] – Speaker 2
Put blocks on their accounts before bedtime if you have to. So I think that that’s really important to have those conversations. For morning, um, I practise with my teens and my clients the same that I do with my adults. Many of us— do you use your phone as your alarm clock?
[00:30:36.990] – Speaker 1
When I do set an alarm, I actually don’t really set alarm. I have, unless I have to get up for a flight or whatever, I’m pretty good at internal clocks.
[00:30:45.830] – Speaker 2
So I love that. No, that’s amazing. So most of us use our phones, and your teens does as well, will use your phone as your alarm clock. And that’s okay to do, provided you can set the alarm, put your phone down, and turn off the alarm and put your phone down. But what happens with a lot of my clients, whether I’m working with tweens or teens or adults, is that they’re turning off their alarm in the morning and they’re right away grabbing their phone, checking emails, checking school emails, checking into social media, checking a text change, checking Snapchat, all of that stuff. They haven’t even gotten out of bed yet, right? So this is where your morning really affects your bedtime. You’re allowing all that chaos into your brain, your child’s allowing it into their brain, um, before their feet have even hit the ground. So this is where we want to start practising the 30-minute rule, right? 30 minutes in the morning, and this is a conversation to have with the kids, and do it yourself so that they see you practising it and they’re modelling that behaviour where for 30 minutes, turn off your alarm and don’t cheque into the outside world.
[00:31:46.000] – Speaker 2
You know, whether that be a time where you’re moving your body, you’re getting ready for school, you’re packing your lunch, you’re, you know, listen, I have a tween, teenage daughter, I have two daughters, they’re doing all their skincare and their hair and their teeth. I have a son who does the skincare and hair and everything. That alone takes 30 minutes, right? So, Take time for yourself as adults. Have a cup of coffee, go walk your dog, um, talk to your partner. That doesn’t happen very often. All of those things, um, before you cheque in with the outside world is important.
[00:32:13.270] – Speaker 1
That’s so good. And again, it’s connected. I’m, I’m really going to take this from the conversation of like how you start your morning impacts how you go to bed at night. So even that, if you start your day off tech-free, 30 minutes, you probably get in a habit of saying, yeah, now I need to put it away at the end of the day. And you start your day right, you can finish your day right. I love that. Also, just affirm a quick thing about content and how important it is. Oftentimes in my life, I like to read some fiction. I often like to read, like, spy stuff, CIA, other things. And the other night, it was later, and I was like, I’m just going to read a few chapters. And it was a more intense time of the book. And I think I pretty much dreamt like I was in the middle of my book through the night, and I had a bit more of a restless sleep. Because I’ve got that like intense, you know, spy stuff going on that all of a sudden now I’m in it in my dreams. And I woke up feeling not quite as rested because of the content I consumed right before I went to bed.
[00:33:09.880] – Speaker 1
So that’s a little personal admission today of how that does connect. And I remember thinking, I’m like, I should probably not read that right up until I turn my light off and go to sleep.
[00:33:21.420] – Speaker 2
Yeah. And listen, it depends on the person, right? Some people are more sensitive to that than others. You know, I know there’s, there’s some people that, can watch the serial killer shows and all of those shows right before they go to bed and be fine. I just did a Lunch and Learn at a company where a man said, “I like to listen to political talks before I go to bed.” And I’m like, “Okay.” That is something I could do right now in politics. But if that’s what works for you before you go to bed and you sleep soundly, who am I to tell you to change it? So, it just depends on the person. Obviously, if you’re more sensitive to headlines and news headlines, and let’s be honest, who isn’t right now, don’t listen to the news right before you go to bed. Don’t read the headlines right before you go to bed. But if it doesn’t bother you and that’s something that you thrive off of and that you enjoy and that calms you down.
[00:34:10.650] – Speaker 1
We’ve talked about tech. That’s a big topic for parents. I know we spend a lot of time on this show talking about anxiety for young people and the role that plays in their life and even like a defining thing with this generation as they’ve come out of COVID and different things like that. But I do want to ask a bit about the interplay between anxiety and sleep. I know if we’re anxious, it’s harder to sleep. If we don’t sleep well, we might be more susceptible to anxiety in our lives. Like, what’s the interplay? What do you have to say around anxiety and sleep?
[00:34:42.950] – Speaker 2
Yeah, so when it comes to anxiety and stress, you know, I mentioned melatonin and cortisol. So melatonin is our natural sleep hormone. This is released at night. This is what prepares our body and mind to fall asleep. Cortisol is our stress hormone. It’s not bad to have. We need our stress hormone to function throughout the day. But when we have elevated stress hormones, so when we are going through a more anxious period in our life or more stressful or more worrisome period in our life, our stress levels are elevated. They’re higher. Those stress levels then carry into our bedtime. And when we’re going to bed with elevated stress levels, our melatonin level isn’t able to release as it should. Right. So there’s an imbalance in our stress and in our, in our stress hormone and in our sleep hormone. And that’s going to obviously affect our sleep. So if you find that your child is going through a more anxious time or a more stressful time, that’s where stress management comes in. And that’s where it’s important to start teaching your child better coping skills and better stress management skills. Often, what we do at 3:00 PM is going to help us at 3:00 AM.
[00:35:49.580] – Speaker 2
So, when I say 3:00 PM, I don’t necessarily mean right at 3:00 PM, but often what we do throughout the day is going to help us sleep better, right?
[00:35:56.890] – Speaker 1
So, I switch to decaf at 2:00.
[00:35:59.640] – Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, I’m the same. I’m almost at my point now. I’m thinking I might have a quick cup of coffee after this podcast recording, but anything past 2:00 and I’m not sleeping, right? So, you know, we have to allow ourself. This is It’s something that I call— I call it a personal pause. It’s actually a form of constructive worry where the problem, the main problem is, is we are so distracted throughout the day, whether it be ourselves or our kids, because of school and work and social media and connexion and all of those things. Any kind of problem or worry, we can push it down and push it down and mask it with everything else going on in our life. Right. But then when we go to bed, distractions are gone. And what’s going to flood our brain, everything that we haven’t allowed ourselves time throughout the day to work through. So this is where it’s just a very simple activity that you can teach your child to do that I recommend a lot of adults do as well. And there’s something to be said, I do say, about pen to paper over writing yourself a note in your phone or sending yourself an email or text or Snapchat or however kids are doing it.
[00:37:00.420] – Speaker 2
But maybe start with a journal, with a constructive worry journal or a personal pause journal, I call it. Where you’re writing a line in the middle and you’re writing out the problem. So what is the problem that you know, or asking your child, what is the problem that is going to keep you up at night? What is the problem in your life currently, right? What is the one thing that’s going to pop into your head at bedtime or is going to pop into your head if you do wake up at 3 AM in the morning? The other side of the line, start writing down some steps to solve that problem. You don’t have to solve it in that moment, and you likely won’t. But just taking those small steps towards resolution could help you sleep a lot better. So it could be having a conversation with someone, making an appointment with somebody, finding out more information about something, something like that, right? Close the notebook or fold the piece of paper and put it away and then instruct your child or for you yourself, if you’re doing it, where when you do go to bed at night, you’re still going to think about it.
[00:37:53.980] – Speaker 2
We’re human. I’m not going to tell anyone, don’t stress out, don’t have worries. Worries, don’t have concerns. It’s going to happen, but you need to kind of shift the mindset and really allow yourself to put it in a certain container where your bedtime container is not for those worries or those concerns. So then you can say to yourself, I gave myself time throughout the day to work on it. I’m going to give myself time tomorrow to work on it. Now is not the time. And really making sure that you’re— then you or your child is able to focus on better sleep. And that takes time. It’s something to include into your lifestyle that takes time to kind of seamlessly add in.
[00:38:31.190] – Speaker 1
Did you— I want to get this right. Did you say a form of constructive worry?
[00:38:35.100] – Speaker 2
Exactly. Yeah.
[00:38:36.220] – Speaker 1
I love that phrase. That’s really helpful.
[00:38:38.230] – Speaker 2
But I always say like we need to allow ourselves time throughout the day to stress out, right? And when I say stress out, constructively stress out.
[00:38:45.130] – Speaker 1
Yeah.
[00:38:45.770] – Speaker 2
When we’re not working on our problems throughout the day, they’re coming into our bedroom and into our bedtime. For sure.
[00:38:52.100] – Speaker 1
I think that’s a really helpful framework to think about that, how to navigate stress and anxiety in a healthy way, not just avoid it, let it creep up, but kind of tackle it head-on and help with the process so that it doesn’t impact things like sleep. I think that’s really insightful, really helpful there. You talk— we’ve talked a lot about some of the things that help with— like a phrase you would use is like sleep hygiene. When we talk about sleep hygiene, what does that involve? Is it the physical space? Is it routine? You also talk about something like a slowdown cycle. How would that integrate to the routine piece? What are a few other maybe tips or insights you could offer us around sleep hygiene?
[00:39:38.120] – Speaker 2
So sleep hygiene are steps and practises that you or your child can take in order to sleep better. So a lot of them are habit changes, right? They’re lifestyle changes. I mentioned the 80/20 rule, you know, trying to keep a consistent bedtime and a consistent wake time. When you mentioned the slowdown hour, that is the bedtime routine that I think that works very well for my teen clients. You know, coming back to how do we get them to go to bed when perhaps we’re not around, when we’re already sleeping, creating that slowdown hour for them and even for my adult clients can work really well. So basically what a slowdown hour is, is it’s 1 hour before bedtime. You’re breaking up that 1 hour into 3 20-minute increments. So the first 20 minutes is the preparation for the next day. So this is the to-do list that’s swimming in your brain when you go to bed, right? It could be for our kids, it could be, you know, maybe some school assignments that are due the next day or what do they need? Do they need to talk to their guidance counsellor or to their teacher about something?
[00:40:35.030] – Speaker 2
Like writing out your to-do list, right? For adults, it could be work stuff, it could be writing out your grocery list, your to-do list, anything like that. Picking out your outfit for the next day, packing your lunch for the next day, Automating your life. There’s, you know, something just as small as like automating when your coffee turns on in the morning can be a stress reliever, right? Can be a stressor in your life that you’re now removing. So preparing for the next day for the first 20 minutes. The next 20 minutes is actual hygiene. So this is the brushing of the teeth and the baths and the showers. And for our kids, it’s all the skincare and all the things that they’re doing. And even for us adults, you know, really preparing, getting changed in pyjamas. Putting on— I always say putting on the uniform, right? Our kids live in their sweatsuits right now, and a lot of kids are waking up in the same thing they’re going to school in and then going to bed in the same thing that they’re going to school in. So having that shift of changing out of daytime clothes into bedtime clothes can cue your brain that you’re preparing for sleep, right?
[00:41:31.050] – Speaker 2
So having that set of pyjamas for them. And then the last 20 minutes is whatever kind of relaxing activity they can do. So it could be an app, it could be, you know, practising bedtime yoga, mindful breathing, meditation, breathwork, anything like that. It could be watching an episode of Modern Family. It could be knitting, crocheting, like whatever, whatever is going to work for your tween or teen. And then that encompasses that hour before bed so that that last 20 minutes is going to help them calm their body and calm their mind to help them fall asleep at night. So sleep environment is also a big one. Sleep environment is probably the most powerful tool that you or your child utilise to help you sleep better. You should have that instant connexion between sleep and relaxation and calmness when you walk into your bedroom. Right. But often our bedroom becomes our catch-all room, right? Especially for our kids. It is your kids’ kind of sanctuary away from you, right? It’s where they’re doing their homework. It’s where they’re eating their meals. It’s where they’re talking to their friends. It’s the room in which they’re doing everything but sleeping well in.
[00:42:40.500] – Speaker 2
So that’s where you need to make that shift. And that’s a conversation to have with your child. And that’s something that you guys can work on together. So always focus on— I always say focus on your 5 senses. So what do we need to see? Probably what needs to happen is there needs to be a little organisation, a little decluttering, a little cleanup, right? When we’re going to bed in chaos, we’re going to be sleeping in chaos. So it could be something like that. It could be affordable. You don’t have to spend a lot of money, but maybe it’s, you know, if your child is sleeping with red walls, provided they’re okay with it, maybe it needs to be a nice calming colour. Maybe we need to get new bedding that’s going to help them sleep better. What are they smelling? Do they need to incorporate more scented candles or scented aromas, provided they know to blow out the candles before they go to bed? And what are they tasting? You know, we want to avoid really big meals before we go to bed. We want our body busy focusing just on quality sleep rather than regulating temperature, rather than digesting food.
[00:43:41.000] – Speaker 2
So I would say 4 hours or more before they go to bed to avoid big, heavy meals, which can sometimes be hard with our teens because they tend to eat late sometimes because they’re going to bed a little bit later. So again, conversation, having them understand why that’s not a good idea and how that’s going to affect their sleep. What are they feeling? So You know, are they sleeping on the same mattress that they slept on when they were 2 years old? A lot of our kids are. So do we need to invest? You know, we spend one-third of our lives sleeping. Your bed is the piece of furniture in your home that you or your child is spending the most time on. Can be a big investment. I do understand that. But it is an important investment in their overall health and well-being. So do they need a new mattress? How have they grown out of their old one? Do they need new pillows and new bedding? What are they hearing? Do they need silence? Do they need earplugs? Do they need sound machines? Do they need, you know, external sounds that are going to drown out some of the external sounds around them, like a white noise?
[00:44:38.040] – Speaker 2
There’s, again, there’s a lot of great apps for that, too. So sleep environment is a very important one for sure, especially for our teens.
[00:44:44.830] – Speaker 1
When you say what you’re feeling, too, I know for me, when my room’s cold, my sleep is immensely better than when my room’s hot.
[00:44:53.280] – Speaker 2
Yeah, we all sleep better in a colder environment.
[00:44:56.010] – Speaker 1
Oh my goodness. Yeah, I— if I wake up in the middle of the night, there’s a pretty good chance it’s because I’m hot, you know. They’re like— I just feel more sweaty and whatever. So I’m just— I, I know that because my wife came into our room this morning, she said, “It’s freezing in this room.” I’m like, “I know, I slept so well last night,” you know. It was just— we literally had that conversation this morning. So, you know, that’s another one. As we kind of wrap up our conversation, I have two, two brief questions. You mentioned a few times about talking to your kids, and one of the things I know you talk about is having a family sleep meeting. Tell me a little bit about what that is. How do you, how do you get people to buy into that? What happens at a family sleep meeting? How regular? Just a high level, uh, because I think that’s a really intriguing idea of having a family sleep meeting.
[00:45:41.560] – Speaker 2
I don’t like to make it super formal because, you know, some of our kids don’t really respond to that well for the most part, especially at that age, right? So You know, we call it a family sleep meeting, and this is where there’s an agreed-upon time where we’re all— it could be around the dinner table, it could be in front of the TV with the TV turned off, you know, in the family room, just all sitting around where we’re able to sit down as a family and open up that discussion. Like I said, it doesn’t need to be super formal, but I mean, I have had some families that have drawn up fun contracts. So we call them family sleep contracts where, you know, there’s clauses that are going into those contracts. You know, I will agree For the child’s clause, I will agree to lights out at 12 PM. I will agree that I will start my tech curfew at 11 PM or sorry, 12 AM, 11 PM. For parents, you know, I will agree that my bedtime will be this and my tech curfew will be this and we’ll plug in all of our devices here.
[00:46:36.610] – Speaker 2
And if we all do this for the next, you know, 2 weeks to a month, we’ll go here for dinner or like whatever your family likes. Paintball, laser tag, I don’t know, bowling, you know, a fun activity that you can do as a family. So it’s really just like when I say family sleep meeting, I don’t want it to make it this like super formal meeting, but it’s just a conversation where you’re all present. No one’s on their devices, devices are away. You’re all making eye contact and you’re all talking and you’re all contributing. So this isn’t where you’re all sitting down and you as the parent is dictating this is what’s going to happen. This is why it’s going to happen. Opening up conversation. Like I said, starting with simple questions on, “Why do you think that we need to sleep?” asking your child. “How do you feel when you’ve had a really good night of sleep? How do you feel when you haven’t had a good night of sleep?” So they start to make that connexion and they start to understand, “You know, you’re right. When I haven’t had a good night of sleep, it’s really hard to get to school in the morning.
[00:47:35.050] – Speaker 2
It’s really hard to wake up. I don’t feel great during the day. I have a harder time,” like, and they’re starting to understand the repercussions of not having a good night of sleep, right? So helping them understand that.
[00:47:47.010] – Speaker 1
Lana, this has been a super insightful conversation. You’ve offered so many great insights and tips and perspectives to, I think, a really important topic, one that I don’t think maybe we give enough attention to, particularly as parents. So it’s been really great for me. I always learn so much from these things too. As we wrap up, I wonder, either just reinforcing something that you’ve already shared or adding something new to this, what’s one piece of advice you would give to parents that might be like a small change or an adjustment that could have outsized impact on how well-rested our kids are?
[00:48:25.730] – Speaker 2
I think the biggest piece of advice, and I mean, we’ve talked about this a lot in this conversation, is just to start those conversations, right? If you’re not having those conversations currently with your child, open conversations that they’re also asking questions and they’re also being included on, and you’re also really listening for their feedback and they’re understanding that their feedback matters and what they want matters. We know our teens respond better to that than us just telling them what to do. I think that’s just a great start, you know what I mean? Because you might be surprised at the feedback that you get from your child. They might understand this more than you give them credit for. And when you start to have those open conversations, you can start to create those sleep goals that you as a family can work towards. I think that’s just a great starting point. And then what you include in those goals and in those clauses, if you want to do that, can stem from there.
[00:49:18.560] – Speaker 1
I know there’s been a whole bunch of things I’m sure our listeners will take from this. I know for me personally, I’m going to be thinking about how I start the day and how that impacts my sleep. down the road. So thank you for that great insight. It’s been a great pleasure to talk to you today, Alanna. Thank you so much for what you do and for your time today.
[00:49:35.410] – Speaker 2
Thanks so much for having me.
[00:49:39.200] – Speaker 1
Well, that’s it for today’s episode. If hearing from Alanna McGinn got you thinking about sleep and not just your kids but your whole family, why don’t you head over to MuskokaWoods.com? There you’ll find a blog post with key key takeaways from the conversation and a link to listen again. Don’t forget to subscribe to Shaping Our World and share this episode with a parent, a caregiver, or a leader who wants to help young people in their life thrive, starting with something as foundational as sleep. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.
