14 Washington FAMILY MAY 2021
“Between the ages
of 25 to 69, women
disproportionately experience shorter sleep
duration and greater
sleep fragmentation.”
DR. CHRISTINE SPADOLA
Both recommend keeping a worry
journal as an outlet for that stress. Just
jotting down bullet points can help, but
Paruthi notes that one shouldn’t journal too
close to bedtime.

Creating a peaceful mood before going
to sleep can also help alleviate stress.

Moms, like babies, benefit from a regular
bedtime routine, says Spadola. That could
mean playing relaxing music, doing a bit of
light stretching or yoga or breathing in the
smell of lavender before crawling under
the covers.

And all of us would sleep better if we
turned off our phones.

“Holding a screen close ... emits blue light
into the eye,” says Spadola. Essentially, “the
light is telling us to wake up.”
There are blue light filters on phones you
can use as well as blue light filtering glasses
— Paruthi says inexpensive pairs are just
as good as the higher-priced options — but
Spadola cautions that these filters can only
do so much. The ideal solution is to turn the
phone off altogether.

By the way, blue light isn’t the only
problem that comes from using your phone
before going to sleep.

“Doom-scrolling” — the practice of
reading through copious amounts of bad
FIZKES/ISTOCK; CLOCK: AYIMAGES/E+/GETTY IMAGES PLUS
significantly greater prevalence of insomnia
in women than in men.

Good sleep can feel frustratingly elusive
for mothers, but there are ways to boost
both the amount and quality of your
slumber. If you can implement any of these
sleep tips, you may just be giving yourself
the best Mother’s Day gift of all: the gift of a
good night’s rest.

The biggest challenge may be shifting
your mindset. For many moms, staying up
late feels like an act of self-preservation.

“Moms report that their day is not their
own,” says Spadola, so they stay up late
to enjoy the solitude. Alternatively, they
may believe they’re more productive at
night when their homes are quiet. Yet the
research supports the opposite, according
to Spadola. “When we sleep better, we’re
more efficient,” she says.

Moms, like all adults, need at least seven
hours of sleep a night for optimal health,
says Shalini Paruthi, a sleep specialist and
member of the American Academy of Sleep
Medicine. Getting much less on a regular
basis is associated with numerous “adverse
health outcomes,” according to the AASM,
including obesity, diabetes, hypertension,
heart disease, depression and an overall
increased risk of death. Parents often
find poor sleep impedes their caregiving
abilities, says Paruthi. Her patients often
tell her, “When I’m sleep deprived, it’s really
hard for me to function as a mom.”
Fortunately, there’s much you can do to
get more sleep, though some advice may be
easier to follow than others.

Spadola says maintaining a regular sleep
schedule — both when you go to bed and
when you wake up — is the most important
thing you can do for your circadian
rhythm, the internal process that regulates
our sleep-wake cycle.

On this point, Paruthi recommends
setting an alarm in the evening as a
reminder to start getting ready for bed. As
for moms who feel like they have to stay up
late to do chores, Paruthi suggests letting
the kids share the burden during the day
so you can get the R & R you need in the
evening. “Dividing up that work is, I think,
really important,” she says.

Stress is another common roadblock for
moms who want more sleep.

“A lot of times, we have sleep
fragmentation or insomnia in the middle of
the night because we have unresolved stress
from the day,” Spadola says.

Paruthi agrees. “Moms have a lot of
chatter in their brain, like 24-seven,”
she says.