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Healthy Sleep Practices theme (Sleeping well)
To help support the wellbeing and resilience of young people transitioning from Year 6 into Year 7, the Resilience Rucksack project identified four themes that particularly stood out: Healthy Sleep Practices, Physical Activity, Social Support & Relationships, and Self-Compassion. Here, we will look at Healthy Sleep Practices:
In our co-production workshops with young people for the ‘Healthy Sleep Practices’ theme, we discussed the ‘sleep steps‘ that we can take during the day to get a good sleep at night, and how we can have a better sleep-wake cycle. Young people advised us on the best ways to engage children in the ‘sleep steps’ and in thinking about the importance of sleep for our wellbeing. Two tools stood out as the best and most engaging ways: A graphic comic and a professional pop song !
Our song ‘Somni – the R.R Sleep & Daylight song‘ has just been released on major platforms!
Click here to hear the song on Spotify! Click here to see the song on YouTube! Click here for more details.
Hidden in the lyrics of the song are the ‘sleep steps’ that we can take during the day to help us sleep at night!
You can read our colourful graphic comic at this link: ‘Sleep Well, Being’ the RR Sleep Comic
In our comic, Zlack and Groog meet Cortisol and Adenosine. But who are they? Find out all about the roles of Cortisol, Melatonin, Adenosine and more below….
Click here to see our Healthy Sleep Practices poster
The Sleep Science behind the Sleep Steps
Getting a good night’s sleep is important for our physical and mental health and can have a significant impact on our mood. Sleep for children and teens is particularly vital for growth and development. We can leverage (use) environmental cues, or signals to our body, such as sunlight, indoor lights, darkness, body temperature, exercise, and timing caffeine and food intake, which are grounded in our physiology, to improve our sleep.
For example, a great deal of research evidence supports that daylight viewing soon after waking up is the most potent stimulus for wakefulness, and has a powerful and positive impact on our ability to fall asleep that night and to stay asleep.
Click on our information sheet on our sleep theme here to read more about the sleep steps and science !