Review: Sleep 'n Sync

Helping Children Achieve Their Goals

The daily stresses in a child’s life are typically caused by test-taking, bullying, anxiety, and many other things. Deborah Hamui, founder and CEO of Sleep'n Sync was highly aware of this information when she created Sleep'n Sync- a revolutionary, audio soundtrack that helps children become more receptive and acquire skills needed to live optimistic, successful lives, while they are sleeping.

Implementing audio with an engineered background soundtrack with binaural beats, Sleep'n Sync synchronizes the child’s brainwaves, creating greater receptiveness while the child is asleep. The program includes audio that should be played on a daily basis while a child is sleeping, during a relatively short period of time. Results are evident in as little as six weeks.

Sleep'n Sync offers programs for many of the challenges that children face every day, such as: test-taking skills, autism, ADHD, bullying, reading comprehension, communication skills and more! 

Every child deserves the opportunity to:

• be happy and satisfied
• do well at school
• have strong, healthy relationships
• be flexible and adaptable
• feel great about themselves

Sleep and Learning

What does sleep have to do with learning?

Many studies have shown that sleeping good and enough improves our learning, and although the information we learn we take in mostly when we are awake, we need to sleep it out to actually get it soundly learned.

Why? Because sleep participates in the consolidation of our fresh memory.

How? The brain-cell clusters that are activated when we learn when awake are activated again when we sleep, right after that awake period, suggesting that the brain connections that were formed when we were taking information in when awake, are reactivated when we sleep, therefore relearned and stored in the right place.

Research has demonstrated that even a nap in the middle of the day can help us learn, and that we need to sleep enough to function properly and learn effectively when we are awake. When we try to study, let’s say for a test, and we study over and over the same information, but we don’t sleep enough time, we do not get it soundly established in our brain.

And if we pretend to take in too much information before we sleep, through the night or just take a nap, our brain doesn’t get it. Studies have found that our learning worsens over the course of several sessions of learning, when we do not get sleep. This means that we can take in a certain amount of information properly and then we have to give our brain the chance to secure it in our memory through sleep…in other words, we can “burnout” as we study too much information in a session, or series of sessions, with no sleep periods in… So we have to understand that to really learn, we need to get some sleep…enough sleep to get everything properly registered in our head.

Memory and Sleep

How does the brain process the information and experiences that we have during the day at night when we sleep?

At night, our brain does not follow a simple process of input and then storage; our brain has a complex process that involves many interconnections between the many different neurons in different areas that participate in such a process. This process involves taking the sensory information from our most recent experiences, selecting what is relevant, discarding unnecessary information, and associating all this with other stored information from experiences that we lived before, that is, from information that was previously processed and stored in our brain. 

In this process that happens when we sleep, relevant information is “filed” and reorganized in the right place so that we are able to retrieve it when we need it. This action of accessing and retrieving information can be a conscious or subconscious action.

Let’s say a girl is having piano lessons, and she needs to learn and practice a certain melody. Her piano instructor showed her the melody, its rhythm, its sound, etc., however the girl has to practice it so that when she plays the melody at the closing piano ceremony of the end of the year, which is coming soon, it comes out perfect. She tries practicing the day her instructor introduced her to the melody, but she is not comfortable with the outcome, so she doesn’t practice the following 3 days. Then, on the 4th day she practices the melody and she performs incredibly well. What happened? She didn’t practice the melody for a few days and then she does great!!!The explanation to this outcome is that her brain did practice the melody when she was sleeping, she rehearsed and practiced playing the melody in her sleep, for 3 nights. So when she played the melody on the piano while awake, it came out really well, she did practice and rehearsed the melody.

Sometimes the time our brain needs to process daytime inputs in longer periods of sleep, and at different stages of sleep. It is known that the different stages of sleep provide the ideal state to process different kinds of input. This means that some input from one experience may be processed in the immediate sleeping period, while other inputs of the same experience may be processed in later sleeping nights.

Sleep'n Sync offers many different programs to help children achieve their goals, including those on bullying, flexibility, anger, test taking, and reading comprehension & communication skills:

Bullying eBook

Flexibility-I

The goal of Sleep'n Sync is to empower children with the skills needed to overcome their obstacles. For additional information on the product, please visit www.sleepnsync.com.  You can also visit Sleep'n Sync on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube.

Reading Comprehension and Communication Skills

Our Thoughts

We have a child who has both motor and speech apraxia as well as other diagnoses.  At age 6, I'd definitely like him to be more independent, but I know things are hard for him since his body doesn't cooperate with what his brain tells it to do.  We also deal with a lower emotional maturity, so there's been a lot of defiance and hitting on his part - only with me, however - he behaves for most other people.  That behavior has been wearing on me and we needed a change.

Sleep'n Sync offered to send the Flexibility I program, which includes both an audio track and binaural beats soundtrack.  The Flexibility I program is designed to help a child be more, well, flexible - more open to change, trying new things, coping with change and being able to be confident about changes and themselves.  Fear and anxiety can hold a child back - the thought "I can't do it" becomes "I can do it", which later becomes "I will do it" and then "I am doing it!"

This program is incredibly easy to do - after our son fell asleep for the night (you can use it during naps too, if your child naps), all we had to do was hit "play" on the CD player and walk away.  He listens to the program every night while he sleeps. (Sleep'n Sync warns do NOT use while driving!)

Each program comes with a nice little guidebook for using the program and includes helpful tips for helping your child overcome adversity.  The guidebook includes detailed evaluation forms, so you can keep track every week on the progress he or she makes. 

While some children may show progress right away, others may take longer. Sleep'n Sync recommends the child listen to the program for at least 6 weeks, or longer. Our son began showing improvement in his ability to do new things and ask for help when needed during the second week.  By the fourth week, we were seeing much more improvement, and now 6 weeks into it, he is showing improvement in almost every area, including behavior. This program has come to us at a serendipitous time; we are increasing his speech, occupational, and physical therapies this year and having him be open to the coming changes is needed in order to accomplish what he wants to do most: talk.

The price is very reasonable and I would recommend Sleep'n Sync to any parent to help guide their child to be more flexible and adaptive! 

Keep Momming

*** I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting (#MC) for Shire. I received a promotional item as a thank you for participating. ***

As an actress, a public health advocate and former journalist, Holly Robinson Peete has seen it all. And as a mother of four, she’s encountered just about every parenting challenge you can imagine. One of her biggest challenges as mom is building and maintaining a close relationship with her teenage daughter, Ryan.

The mother-daughter relationship is a unique one, and that dynamic can be even trickier during the tween years. Yet sometimes, people dismiss certain behaviors as “typical tween girl behavior” when those behaviors can be symptoms of something more serious. Research suggests that girls are more likely than boys to report having mostly inattentive Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms. Since inattentive symptoms can be less noticeable than hyperactive and impulsive symptoms, it is important that moms know what to look for.

I’m proud to be joining forces with Shire, CHADD and Holly Robinson Peete to announce the launch of keep momming, a new public service initiative geared towards the moms of tween girls to raise awareness of ADHD.

The campaign is anchored within a new digital hub, KeepMomming.com, where you’ll find tips, tools and other go-to resources for moms, including a checklist to help recognize the symptoms of ADHD – inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity – and then encourages moms to talk to their daughter’s doctor. The keep momming initiative can help moms learn about ADHD and provide ideas on how to spark a conversation and stay connected with their tween.

Don’t miss Holly’s message about the keep momming initiative http://goo.gl/Uayao5, and be sure to check out the website at KeepMomming.com.

App Review: Managing the Gift - ADD/ADHD App

**Access to App was received in exchange for a honest review**

Ground-Breaking APP Reveals Individualized ‘Gifts’ and Advantages of Children Living with ADD/HD

New ‘Managing the Gift’ APP helps adolescent caregivers uncover and capitalize on distinct strengths, abilities and opportunities specific to each given child living with ADHD, ADD or HD

PHOENIX, AZ, September 2013 – Internationally renowned child and adult ADD/HD expert, author and speaker Dr. Kevin Ross Emery (“Dr. Kevin”) today announced the release of a first-of-its-kind “Managing the Gift” App, which reveals the true potential of each given child living with ADD/HD. This App provides conscientious parents, educators and other caregivers with a more comprehensive and unbiased understanding of ADD/HD at large that negates common unfavorable labels and restrictive predispositions.

Unlike other ADHD Apps currently on the market that are merely self-diagnostic or generalized surface-level advice in nature, the pioneering Managing the Gift App goes well beyond with highly detailed, custom-tailored reports that help caregivers understand precisely how to best parent, guide, support, feed and educate each specific child living with ADHD, ADD or HD.  To facilitate this, among other features, the App uniquely offers a proprietary, personalized “Paint Your Child’s Portrait” interactive tool that reveals and defines a child’s distinct “ADD/HD personality” and, based on the individualized results, provides an expansive custom report that provides caregivers with valuable behavioral insights to recognize, utilize and maximize what Dr. Kevin calls the child’s “ADD/HD greatness.” The information gleaned from the custom-tailored reports also helps caregivers make critical decisions about diet, guidance and other common areas of concern and confusion, while also providing tools and techniques to help ensure the child flourishes amid the unique capabilities and aptitudes identified through the App. 

In addition to the unique “Paint Your Child’s Portrait” and related reporting tool, the Managing the Gift App also offers direct access to informative instructional videos, books, and other highly vetted caregiver resources as well as relevant news and information feeds about ADHD.  App users will also be the first to gain access to Dr Kevin's peer support community when it is launched later this year, which will include streamlined access to Dr. Kevin.

The content and tools in this new application is the manifestation of Dr. Kevin’s more than 15 years of front-line ADD/HD counseling experience coupled with extensive field research for his books, “Managing the Gift of your ADD/HD Child” and “Managing the Gift: Alternative Approaches to Attention Deficit Disorder.” “The first step in understanding ADHD and ADD is knowing that they are simply labels, which are not meant to define or limit a child in any way,” urges Dr. Kevin. “Rather, the Managing the Gift App will give caregivers the knowledge and tools needed to truly comprehend the gifts–not the label–given to a child living with this diagnosis.”

“However well intended, society’s collective attempts to medically treat and otherwise manage ADD/HD individuals often negatively impacts their self-worth and self-esteem and significantly hinders their ability to reach their full potential,” Dr. Kevin continues. “Indeed, the stakes are high when it comes to finding a successful treatment plan, particularly for children.  Those who face criticism from parents, teachers and others for perceived laziness and bad behavior may face a lifetime of emotional problems. In addition, the loss of this population’s insights, brilliance and creativity–their greatness–is all too often sacrificed in order to help them ‘fit in’ to society. We as a culture need to celebrate and nurture those living with ADD/HD as they are so that they can, in turn, love and respect themselves and realize their full capabilities…to the benefit of us all.”

The Managing the Gift App is compatible with any iPhone®, iPad®, or iPod® Touch with iOS 5.1 or greater and is available for free in the iTunes Store. The optional "Paint Your Child's Portrait" feature reports are offered through the App for an additional nominal fee.

As with any medical issue, those concerned about the diagnosis, treatment and/or management of ADHD, ADD or HD are encouraged to speak to their physician.

About the Expert
Dr. Kevin Ross Emery’s books, “Managing the Gift of your ADD/HD Child” and “Managing the Gift: Alternative Approaches to Attention Deficit Disorder” are built upon more than 15 years of experience working with individuals of all ages living with Attention Deficit Disorder – and a lifetime of personal experience dealing with it himself. For more than two decades, Dr. Kevin has offered an approach to ADD/HD that reveals it as a gift that, when properly managed, contains the potential for formidable multitasking skills, creativity and more. Also an international speaker on the topic, Dr. Kevin was among the very first to publicly acknowledge ADD/HD as a step in the evolution of humanity that will eventually allow it to reach new levels of achievement – a view often at odds with a culture that can be quick to resort to medicating children who show signs of ADD/HD or who in some cases, don’t even meet that standard.  The titles of his books sum up Dr. Kevin’s intent – to assist parents in managing the gifts of their ADD/HD children – to not see it from the perspective of ADD/HD being a disease or disability, or from a perspective of drugs being the sole solution. Dr. Kevin has worked with ADD/HD individuals of all ages – from young children to business owners seeking to balance their innovation with organization.  Learn more online at www.MyDrKevin.com. 

Our Thoughts

Being the parents of a child with ADHD is hard. It's hard because you want to do the right things. You want to make the right decisions on wether to medicate or not, what to feed to help with the situation, what to give your child for activities that are productive. 

This App helps take some of the guessing and trials out of the life of a parent of an ADHD child. I love that the questions on the App are simple but complex enough to help with learning pathways. For my oldest -who is the only one that is ADHD in this household- the assessment pegged him to a T. I am actually sending on the assessment to his teachers because we have his IEP (Individualized Education Plan) meeting coming up and I really think that this will help them with getting him working well within the classroom. I think that this App would be great for those parents that need/want to know how their kids learn and what foods/care they need to hopefully elevate some of the stress that comes with the ADHD/ADD diagnosis. 

***Please note that I received no form of monetary compensation for this post. The opinions expressed in the review are my own and were not influenced in any way.***