How Sleep Routines, Meal Timing, and Breathwork Boost Stress Resilience with Melissa Deally

Hey, welcome back. No problem parents to another wellness Wednesday episode. Today is part three of our three part sleep series with Melissa Dealy of yourguidedhealthjourney.com. And in today's episode, we're focusing on creating bedtime routines. And in doing so we can help ourselves and our kiddos become more stress resilient.

Melissa is going to share some tips and some tools on optimizing sleep routines we're going to talk about the timing of eating before bed and the power of breath work before bed and then be sure to follow this podcast Melissa will be back on the show and she's going to be talking about things like food sensitivities and detoxing for wellness and how we can help our bodies calm she is a wealth of information again parents and so I highly recommend you check out yourguidedhealthjourney.com Your guided health journey helps you get to the root cause of why you feel the way you do.

And they provide a wellness protocol along with education to help you and your family optimize your health. Melissa works with you to create a plan. She has programs for both adults and kids. And she is the host of the Don't Wait for Your Wake Up Call podcast.

So be sure to look in the show notes, click all the links, and learn more about how you can support your family's health and wellness. All right, let's get into it. Welcome to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. From toddler tantrums to teenage eye rolls, this podcast is your go-to for updated and old school tips and tools that are going to help you become the confident leader your kids crave you to be. Do you ever wish there was a specific manual that came with each one of your kids? I mean, what works for one often doesn't work for the other, right? And let's face it, we don't know what we don't know. And even if there was a manual, it probably wouldn't be able to keep up with all the changes in our world. Well, this podcast is the next best thing. I'm your host, Jackie Finnaman, a 30-year counselor turned parenting coach,

and I've got a lot to share, including hundreds of resources that you have access to right from your home and strategies that are going to boost your confidence and energize you. So whether you're knee-deep in diapers or navigating the tween years, or you're launching your child into adulthood, subscribe and share this podcast with your friends teachers and daycare providers we're going to turn your parenting problems into no problem one episode at a time welcome back melissa thank you i'm so happy to be back you and i could meet every single day and we could exchange tips and tools and ideas and resources for parents every single day so i wish there was time for that but i am super excited that you are going to be a regular guest contributor to the show and that we're talking about sleep as sort of our foundational first step whenever we have issues with behavior and mood. I think our very first go-to is addressing sleep. Absolutely. It really is foundational in all aspects of health and wellness. And stress is a problem in the world today. And it's not just a problem for adults. Our kids are stressed too. And it doesn't matter what grade of school they're in, just life is busy and they feel that stress and that can negatively impact their sleep. And then that sets them up for being less stress resilient the following day. Whereas when we understand that they're stressed and we set them

up for being more stress resilient through getting good sleep and focusing on sleep and having them understand the importance of sleep. You know, having these conversations with our kids, even when they're little, is important. Nobody ever talked to me about sleep. It wasn't until I got into health and wellness that I started studying sleep and realizing how important it is in all aspects of our lives that I wanted to start teaching it and sharing that with more people.

The point that you make about kids and stress, and it happens for infants too, infants that are going to daycare for eight to 10 to 11, sometimes hours a day away from mama, that is stressful or primary caregiver that is stressful and tense for them. And especially if it's in a daycare setting where the staff are rotated and they're not getting consistency of staff and that same person that understands their cues when they have a tummy ache or when they're tired. I don't want to scare people by that, but I want it to, I want to alert you enough that you pay attention and don't just go through the motions of dropping your kids at daycare, picking them up and expecting that everything's going to be okay.

Babies get stressed too. So that's my point on that, as do little kiddos. So let's move in. Last week, we talked about blue light.

And actually, there's a lot more information on blue light than I thought there was. So that was very helpful. Now, today, we want to talk about bedtime routine and the importance of that, how we can incorporate breath work and timing of eating before we are expecting our kiddos to drift off to sleep. So I'm just going to let you take the mic.

Yes. So let's start with timing of eating because dinner time in relation to bedtime does matter. After we finish our meal, our body needs time to digest it. And we want digestion to be finished before we get into sleep mode, because when we're getting into our sleep mode, that's when our body is now detoxifying. It's recharging our mitochondria so we have energy for the next day. It's when our body gets into healing mode as well.

And none of that will happen if the body's in digestion mode. And we get into a much deeper sleep if we've completed digestion before we're falling asleep. And yet for many people, and not necessarily children, but adults in particular, they might be, you know, having a snack at 10 PM and then, you know, falling is trying to fall asleep at 10 30 and their body's still full on digesting that snack. And we don't want to be doing that. We need roughly three hours between dinner and bed. And I realized for younger children, that may not be possible.

However, I'm sharing this with you so that you can maximize the time that they have between dinner and bed. So can they have a bigger meal perhaps before they do, maybe they have homework to do. Maybe they have some extracurricular activities. And rather than having a big dinner when they get home at eight o'clock at night, could they have a meal before they go, not too big if they're running around doing sports, and kind of split it up into two meals.

So what they have at eight o'clock at night is a lighter meal rather than a heavy meal coming home from sports. So think about how you might be able to make that work for kids around their schedule and as often as possible, have two to three hours between dinner and bed. What is the purpose of it takes that two hours for our bodies to digest? It takes three hours for digestion. Yes.

If you've had a steak, it can take even longer. Right. so a meal that is easier to digest is something that's got cooked vegetables it's the stew it might be lentils anything that you can push if you hold a fork horizontally to the surface of the plate and you push the prongs of the fork down into the food as opposed to holding it vertically and jabbing it like you would with a steak for instance if you do it horizontally and push it down into the food if the food oozes up between the prongs of the fork like it would with mashed potatoes that's easier on digestion so the the more cooked the veggies are the easier it is on digestion and there is a fine line because the more cooked it is the less nutrients right yeah so that's a really good point though too because we sometimes think that even like having a salad then before bed is going to be good with some raw veggies and things but that's not going to pass the mashed potato on that question. Exactly. So this is more for the parents who are listening, but Melissa also provides or offers 21 day health kickstart detoxes.

And I've done those at least once a year. They're amazing. You get to eat on them and you learn about this very thing when you're doing that kickstart health, kickstart detox, eating a salad is healthy and yes, it can be very good for you, but it's also harder to digest. So Stock her website, yourguidedhealthjourney.com, and learn more about what are the health benefits and all that.

Okay, I hijacked that. Great conversation, though, because parents can plan around, okay, this is the night they're going to be home later. So then they can plan an easier-to-digest meal or a lighter meal so that digestion doesn't take as long and dinner is digested before bed. How does it keep us up?

Is it just the digest, the fact that, you know, we can, we're not active after we eat a big meal and go right to bed. And so we're picking up weight, you know, gaining weight. Well, that's part of it, but that's not really an issue for most kids, right? That is part of it for adults that the longer you fast overnight and started earlier in the evening is better in terms of the body's ability to be using those calories and burning them up so that you're not gaining weight.

But really, it's also about digestion and making sure digestion has been completed before we're asking the body to go into sleep mode and getting into the REM sleep and the deep sleep because that's when it wants to be detoxing. That's when it wants to be healing. That's when it's recharging our energy. And none of those things can happen if digestion is still happening because digestion in and of itself takes a lot of energy.

Every time we put food in our mouth, it takes 30% of our energy to digest it. digestion needs to be complete for the next processes to start. So it's a really good idea for us parents to learn this and to know this, and then just be able to provide this information to our kids. So we teach it in this, it's just a matter of fact, kind of, this is, this is the way it is instead of, no, you can't have that. Hey, what do you think?

Would your body be able to digest that in time for you to go to bed? Having these conversations just much differently than a yes, no, you know, snack or no snack. And then I also like the idea of breaking up the meals. I think oftentimes if you have a school-aged kiddo and they're in school, in-person school, they may or may not be getting great nutrition in school or eating their full meal because they might be over, you know, conversing with kids and just like over-stimmed and just don't get all the food in.

And they're famished when they get done with school. and especially if they have like an afterschool program that they're in. So sometimes coming home and eating a really big meal is almost too much right away. And breaking that up and having a little bit before dinner, you know, instead of wait for dinner, well, mom, I've just waited since my 1030 lunchtime at school or my 11 o'clock lunchtime at school.

I've already waited six or six and a half hours. I am hungry. I need a little bit now. Yes.

And that's a long time for kids to wait. ideally, we're eating every three and a half to four hours. We don't need to be eating nonstop, like many people were during the pandemic, because the refrigerator was just here. We do want the body to have time to fully digest one meal before we put the next meal in.

But if we eat every three and a half to four hours, the body can do that. And going six to seven hours is a long time without a meal, especially for kids who are using mental energy learning at school, physical energy, running around, playing with friends, going to gym class, et cetera, et cetera. And so that in and of itself can put the body into a little bit of a stress state because the body's going, wait a minute, you're using all this energy and making all these energy demands of me. Where's my fuel? So definitely, you know, if kids are coming home after school and they had a really early lunch, they are going to need a nutritious meal at that point and give them something then that's perhaps more substantial and a lighter dinner because we're also all beings of nature and digestion is at its best when the body is warmed up when we've got heat which is again high noon right we talked about high noon is when blue light is the light coming from the sun it's when our bodies are the warmest it's when our digestive system is functioning at its best. So ideally, we actually have our biggest meal of the day in the middle of the day when our bodies are warmer and digestion can function more efficiently. And a smaller meal at the end of the day, a lighter meal at the end of the day, as long as the kids have had a nutritious meal that will carry their energy at lunchtime to after school time.

So important. I do have to say, I don't know how many parents are going to be able to wait three hours between the time they get home and get the kids fed and bedtime. Some kiddos are getting to bed by eight o'clock and they may not be getting a meal till six. So it is about doing the best you can, as I said, and being aware of the timing that you're working with and ensure that that meal is an easier to digest meal.

If you have less time for their little body to digest it. And that could just be your regular. That's the way your home works. Once you set this up and put this in place, and maybe then you and hubby or husband and wife partners are waiting to eat their nice little date night meal after the kiddos are in bed.

You've had a little snack with them. You know, that can be your hors d'oeuvre if it's a smaller meal for the kids. And then adults can be getting their bigger meal, you know, substance meal in just a little bit later after the kiddos in bed. So that's not a bad idea either.

Or perhaps timing is that Monday to Friday, because of work schedules and not getting home until 5 o'clock so you can't get dinner on the table until 6 and bedtimes at 8, that you have the easier to digest meals and smaller meals Monday to Friday. But perhaps on the weekend, there's a little bit more prep time. You can have dinner on the table at 5 p.m.

So now you can have those special meals on the weekends, et cetera. Right. That's another way to look at it. Bedtime routines.

So bedtime routines, when my kids were little, I just thought bedtime routines were to help make the whole process easier because the kids knew what was coming and then hopefully that meant they were a little bit more cooperative with the whole process. What I now know and the science behind it is that the bedtime routine is really, really important for the brain to know to start producing melatonin. And we talked about melatonin last week and its inverse hormone to cortisol and that melatonin is really important for our bodies to be able to get into a deep restorative sleep.

And the signal for the brain to produce melatonin used to come at dusk because our eyes would see the dusk sky and that would be the signal, oh, it's time to now start producing melatonin. We don't have that signal anymore because of course we live in homes with electricity and then all of that gets blocked out. So the brain has no way to know to start producing melatonin in advance of us going to bed so that we can then fall into a deep restorative sleep unless we create a routine and train our brain to know.

and we can absolutely do that and it takes you know 21 to 30 days to create a habit i like to suggest people do this for 30 days in a row and then the brain will know oh he's doing this he's starting his bedtime routine i'm going to start producing melatonin so what is the bedtime routine it's four to six activities in the same order every night that take anywhere from 30 minutes to 45 minutes as you prepare for bed. So typical routine back when my kids were little was to have a bath, put the PJs on, brush teeth, etc. and get into bed and have story time. That's four activities.

You do that in the same order every night for 30 days. So some of you listening might already have a bedtime routine and you do it in the same order every night and that's awesome because what it's doing is it's letting your child's brain know to start producing melatonin so they can fall into a deeper more restorative sleep some of you may not have a bedtime routine or you do but you don't do it in the same order every night you kind of shake it up and do things differently i invite you to do it in the same order every night so your brain realizes as soon as the bath is turned on and they know they're getting in the bath, the brain will know, oh, it's bath time. I'm going to start producing melatonin. And you can enhance their sleep by throwing in a cup of Epsom bath salts into that bath. That's very calming on the body. The magnesium in the Epsom bath salts is easily absorbed by the skin. It also helps to draw toxins out of their body. So it's got a double benefit. And because it's so calming on the body, the magnesium that's being absorbed, they're also going to be more easily able to fall asleep. So definitely include bath time in your bedtime routine. Whatever else you want to include. For some of you, it might be take the dog for a walk around the block. For other people, as kids are older, maybe it's a shower rather than a bath.

It may be for adults, it could include things like, you know, washing the dishes and going around the house and turning out all the lights. Whatever it is, just do it in the same order. You can include yoga. You can include just stretching. You can include breath work. Breath work is another incredibly calming tool for our nervous system. And our breath is like sleep, something we tend to take for granted because we all can breathe. We were born able to breathe and we just take it for granted. However, when you consciously choose to focus on your breath, you can calm your body.

and so if kids are feeling stressed out you can teach them this this is a great way to help calm the body right before bed it's also something that you can teach them that if they wake up in the night and they can't fall back to sleep that they can do this as well to help them get back to sleep and that is what i call five five seven breathing where you inhale for a count of five and if the kids are little, you can adapt the number that you count to. Maybe it's three, three, five breathing if they can't yet hold their breath for a count of five. But ideally you inhale for a count of five, you hold that breath for a count of five, and then you exhale for a count of seven.

so that the exhale is longer than the inhale. And you do that 10 times. And that will drop their nervous system out of the sympathetic fight or flight system into their parasympathetic rest and digest system, which is where you need to be to get rest. And the reason this is so powerful and the reason it works is, first off, it's because the exhale is longer than the inhale. So if you think about our fight or flight system is designed to pump cortisol and adrenaline into our veins so we can get to safety.

So if we have a lion or a tiger chasing us, that we can get to safety so we can move fast. And if we're running from that lion or tiger, we are going to be panting, right? So the brain knows that if we, if our exhale is longer than our inhale, it knows, oh, I must be safe. I'm not actually trying to run away from a lion or a tiger. So if I'm safe, then I can be in my rest and digest system. That is genius. Isn't it really cool to teach your kids. That's a great example of understandable example of how to teach your kids about that. Their brain will know safe in there. And I love that for bedtime. I love that for kids who are afraid.

And they just have to count their inhale, their hold, and their exhale. And the brain will know. We do 10 cycles of it so that the brain has time to kind of catch on. And after 10 cycles, the brain's like, oh, look at that. My exhale is longer than my inhale right now. I must be safe.

I'm going to turn on my parasympathetic rest and digest nervous system. So the other thing that's really cool about this is that A, for young kids too, they're practicing counting, right? They got to count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, hold 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, exhale 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And I do all that in my head. I use this myself. I do that in my head, but then I have to count 10 rounds of it.

so I got to pull out my fingers right because I can't count the three cycles and the you know 10 times of that all in my head so then I pull out my fingers and I'm counting on my fingers by the time I focused on all of this counting whatever was stressing me out is gone yeah I love that one out of my head because that's just one too many things to have to still keep hold of So it's distracted me to let go of the stressor.

So that's the other piece that's really cool. I'd be willing to bet that some kids will have fallen asleep by the time they get to five or six even. Oh, totally. Totally.

It's like counting sheep when we were little. It was like count sheep and you'd start counting sheep and eventually you'd fall asleep. Exactly. And this is a spinoff of that in the sense that now I understand the science of it and I understand the inhale, the hold, the exhale and what that's doing.

I do liken it to when my mother told me to count sheep and when I use this I rarely wake up in the night and can't fall back asleep but it happens and when I use this I never get past eight rounds before I fall asleep again and you can use this anywhere you can use this in the car if you're driving to work and you're late and there's a traffic jam and you're getting all stressed out and frustrated just do this because you've got your breath with you everywhere maybe something's going on in the middle of your work day as a parent and you're just frustrated at work, annoyed, stressed out, go to the washroom, sit on the toilet, count your breath, bring yourself down or do it in your office. You can do it anywhere. This also helps to turn on digestion as well. So we were talking earlier about digestion. Remember this is your rest and digest mode. The body doesn't digest unless digestion is turned on. So if you want to help your kiddos be better able to digest their evening meal so that it's fully digested before they go to bed, you want to make sure digestion is turned on even before they start eating. So you can all sit at the table as a family at dinner,

and before you start eating, just do this. So again, drop your body into that rest and digest state. So now digestion is turned on, which means your body can produce salivary enzymes, stomach acid, all of the enzymes through your intestinal system to help break down that food more quickly and effectively. So digestion is completed before you go to bed. I just envision everybody holding their hands around the table, do your prayer and then do, you know, even if it's three of them, three of those five, five, seven breaths, and just everybody together doing that.

Count those as hugs parents. Again, if you listen to the episode, a couple episodes ago, 242, I think it was, we need four hugs a day for survival, eight hugs a day for maintenance and 12 hugs a day for growth, you're holding hands and doing that breath work with your, you know, with your kiddos or your family that counts as a hug. That's like, that's going to do the same exact thing because like Melissa's saying, it's balancing our sympathetic and our parasympathetic.

Yes. So thank you. I really appreciate you being back today. We're going to be recording again.

We'll have a little break on a wellness Wednesday, and then we're going to have you back for a couple of more episodes because we do have more to talk about parents. Melissa's, like I said, a wealth of knowledge. We're going to talk about food sensitivities, which we already dabbled in a little bit, and then also detoxifying for wellness, which I already shared just a little bit. And then also neuro-linguistic programming. Yeah. I'm excited to come back and talk about all of these things and we can absolutely talk about hypnosis as well. So I love to share what I learn, what I know and I'm happy to come and share this with your audience. Thank you very much, Jackie.

Well, you're welcome. And another reason why I love all of your work is that you learned as a mom when you had kiddos that were struggling and that's what even introduced you to the world of health and wellness when otherwise you were in accounting. Yes. And if people want to know more about that story, they can go back and listen to episode 59. The first time I had you on the show and before you wrote a chapter in the book or go to your website, yourguidedhealthjourney.com.

All right, that's it for today's episode of the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Hey, thanks guys for tuning in. If you found value in today's episode, click the subscribe button and share it with other parents who might need a little boost. Stay connected on our socials by following at No Problem Parents for more parenting tips and get your free download of the 60 ways to respond to your kids without losing your cool.

Go to noproblemparents.com. Until next time, remember, your confidence comes from embracing both successes and setbacks. So take a deep breath, embrace the chaos, and remember, you got this.