Sleep is an important element of a healthy life. A healthy sleep pattern in children helps a lot in developing their overall health and physical fitness. If your child is suffering from sleep problems, do not directly get him on medication; instead try home remedies to resolve his sleep issues. A healthy diet also helps greatly in improving the sleep patterns of children. Sleep problems in children lead to several health and behavioural issues like sluggishness, negative attitude, poor cognitive system and consequently poor performance. In short, these problems can affect your child’s life in short run as well as long run.
There can be several reasons behind sleep problems and disorders, and one of them is deficiency of fatty acids in body. Fatty acids like docosahexaenoic acid are very important for kids to help them lead a healthy life. So, you can improve your child’s sleep with fatty acids like omega-3 that is present in fish in quite some generous amounts. Fatty acids also contribute to a quicker and deeper sleep and helps in resolving the issues related to sleep.
The Journal of Sleep Research has proved that children with deficiency of fatty acids are more prone to develop sleep problems and serious disorders like insomnia compared to those who don’t lack in these essential elements. They further stated that for the proper regulation of sleep, the sufficient existence of omega-3 fatty acids is vital in the body. They took blood samples of a group of children, ages varying between 7 to 9 years, to find connection between fatty acids and sleep. They further conducted a survey research to measure the sleep patterns of the same group of children and found that the children with deficiency of fatty acids were experiencing poor night’s sleep in comparison to the other subjects.
The survey questionnaire was filled by their parents who monitored the sleep patterns of their kids during research timeframe. To further prove their findings, they kept the deficient group of children on omega-3 supplements for 16 weeks and found great improvement in their sleeping patterns.
They found a noticeable rise in the quantity of their night sleep, i.e. from 30 to 60 minutes and the sleep interruptions also drastically decreased during the treatment trial. The researchers concluded from their findings that the higher blood levels of docosahexaenoic acid may significantly improve the quality and quantity of sleep as per the feedback provide by the parents.
Another study conducted on same grounds by University of Oxford also suggested the same conclusion stating that the consumption of omega-3 acids plays an appreciable role in improving children’s sleep. They retested the connection of fatty acids with improved sleep by monitoring the sleeping pattern of 362 children after keeping them on supplements and found notable change in their quality and quantity of sleep.
In order to improve your child’s sleep with fatty acids, add fish and other sea food items in your child’ daily meal, so that he can develop higher blood levels of docosahexaenoic acid to fight with his sleep problems. You can try different recipes for preparing an appetizing plate of seafood for your child, so that he doesn’t get bored of the same taste. Moreover, sea food also contributes significantly in improving overall health of your kids, enriching their protein intake, which is greatly helpful in muscle building.
