Sarah Nicole Landry talks about the importance of maintaining a healthy living for the well-being of herself and her family.
How do you teach your kids the importance of overall health & wellness?
When we hear the word “healthy”, immediately our minds can go to food and fitness, when that’s only two prongs of it! Our health includes our mental health, emotional health, intellectual health and more! So, we talk about all of it. Never creating value to where their health is so that if it’s a “down day” in any one category, we just let it be that instead of having discussions over it being somehow bad or creating feelings of failure.
What practices do you have in place to maintain a healthy home?
Kids are really great at mirroring. From a baby learning to do everything to a teen learning to do it all for herself, they are mirroring what they’re seeing. So, for me, it really just comes down to myself and what I want them to mirror. This includes minding the way I talk about my body or others, the moral values around foods (nothing “good” or “bad”) and being open and positive about sharing mental health or needs as they arise. It’s also been finding movement daily that we can enjoy as a family!
How important is adequate sleep to your family’s overall health?
Sleep is such a big pillar of our overall health, and I’ve worked hard to improve my sleep hygiene. When we were working with a sleep coach for our baby, she said something to me that changed my whole perspective when she said that a sleep deficit takes time to repair, so you can’t just have ONE good night’s sleep and expect to feel energized. It takes time and effort, repeatedly, to chip away at that sleep deficit!
But, with teens…that is TOUGH. They’re learning to regulate themselves, and it’s harder as they get older and have more responsibility for them to prioritize sleepovers, well, fun stuff and friends. I definitely don’t have all the answers there yet but hope to keep them well equipped with sleep essentials for quality sleep, even when quantity is lacking.
