A Breath Spa For Kids

I've just read about another UnLtd project: it is offering a breath spa for kids. The workshops are available for children with sleep-disordered breathing (a.k.a. snoring, sleep apnoea).

There is a research summary of sleep-disordered breathing that indicates that it is common in children with physical, emotional or behavioural issues. The project is set up to work on establishing healthy breathing habits for children to reduce the incidence of sleep-disordered breathing. If the techniques work, and the children stop snoring, it would be interesting to see if their other health outcomes improve.

I've participated in some of the pilot workshops for this project before at a pre-school and I had a great time (hey, I got to wear my Darth Vader mask). So, I've offered to run more laughter yoga and meditation sessions as part of the workshops so that the children can have an enjoyable learning experience. It will be interesting to see how this works out!

Allostasis, Sleep and Happiness

Following on from allostasis and happiness I've been thinking about the contribution of sleep to allostasis (and therefore, well-being). The Times carried a summary of El-Sheik's research into sleep quality in children. The more that children are exposed to parental conflicts, the worse they sleep. And, the worse children sleep, the more likely they are to be tired when awake, have difficulty focusing and be irritable and badly behaved. All of which sounds like it could make a contribution to a diagnosis of ADHD, particularly the need to have the behaviour documented in a variety of settings. And, as the children would be tired for most of the day, I think that that criterion would be met.

I wrote about the diabetic children with uncontrolled ketoacidosis who prompted Salvador Minuchin to say that "behavioral events among family members can be measured in the bloodstream of other family members". It seems as if that could also be adapted to "behavioural events among family members can be measured in the diagnoses of other family members".