When are we going to talk about how utterly over the top and ridiculous neurotypical advice for ADHD and sleep is?? It’s straight up fucking bonkers.
Someone with ADHD: I really really struggle to fall asleep at “regualr times”, no matter how tired I am I just can’t seem to fall asleep at 10 pm!!! But I almost instantly fall asleep any time after 2 am. What should I do?
NT sleep advice: You, someone who cannot conceptualize time in any way whatsoever, need to identify TWO HOURS in advance when you want to sleep and, with your executive dysfunction that makes making decisions at will almost straight up impossible, make the decision to stop whatever you’re involuntarily hyperfixating on. Then, you, with a focus disorder that makes it so that you have to be doing something at all times, sit and do nothing for 2 hours. You cannot read. You cannot be on your phone. Do not move. Do not talk to people. Just sit and do nothing. If you can’t fall asleep it’s because you Did Something and it’s your fault. Bluelight 24 hours before you want to sleep is the reason. Never look at a TV, Phone, computer, OR let one of these objects be within a 24,000 mile radius of you. Never ever go NEAR your bed unless you’re already asleep. If you are AWAKE in your bedroom ever you will not be able to sleep.
ADHD Sleep Advice: Get a job that starts at 2 pm or later and go to sleep at 4 am and wake up at noon.
Half my life right here lol
All my life I have had intense insomnia and all the sleep advice I’ve gotten has been like the NT bullshit. Everyone told me it was my fault and I wasn’t trying hard enough. I finally went to a sleep doc and she just laughed and gave me the ADHD version of sleep advice. She told me more often than anything else she prescribes people permission to go to sleep late.
Non-snarky question: does anyone have good ADHD sleep advice for someone who is not able to get a job that starts in the middle of the day? My sister teaches high school and is a single parent to an elementary aged kid. “Sleep till noon” is not an option, but there’s got to be something better than “so you’re just screwed, I guess!” or the aforementioned impossible nonsense. Brilliant ADHD folks, any ideas?
actually yes! For most of my life I have had horrible sleep habits, because not only do I have the classic ADHD delayed sleep phase pattern, but my goddamn hamster wheel of a brain would often keep spinning well into the early morning hours. Lots of nights spent tossing and turning, unplanned all-nighters in college, etc.
What helped was 1) anxiety meds and 2) melatonin. I have multiple timers on my phone to ensure that I take both of these before 10 PM every night, and if I’m consistent about it I can reliably fall asleep around midnight and wake up at 7 even without a morning alarm. (I still HAVE a morning alarm, obviously. not gonna tempt fate over here.) Waking up before 7 and being any kind of functional is still a challenge, but if I had to I could probably make it work.
Also, I have emergency backup Xanax (in a tiny baby dosage) for nights when my usual routine fails to silence the hamster wheel. I go through a 30-pill refill of that in six months or so, normally. Although 2020 has been, uh, a lot more anxiety-inducing than average.
(my last doctor’s appointment was at the very beginning of March, and at the time I asked to refill my emergency Xanax for upcoming election reasons. really glad i did that, y’all.)
A) PERFECTIONISM WILL FUCK YOU
So y’all know the ADHD perfectionist thing, right, the “if I can’t do it right i might as well not do it at all?” thing? Your brain tells you the same thing about sleep. “Oh well, didn’t make it to bed by 1230, guess I’ll stay up till 1; oh well, didn’t make it to bed by 345, might as well stay up till 4.”
Please learn that that is bullshit because sometimes just consciously being aware that what you’re doing is an ADHD thing is enough to remind you that you’ve got coping mechanisms for this and can shock you out of your dysfunctional pattern.
Also your ADHD brain is a shithead and will sometimes say “well I couldn’t get to sleep on time, might as well just stay up all night.” And FUCK YOUR ADHD BRAIN, any sleep is better than no sleep, Mythbusters did a thing about that, even just going to bed and closing your eyes for 20 minutes is better than not getting into bed at all and sometimes that’s ALSO enough to trick your brain into going to fucking sleep.
B) DON’T LAY IN BED AND TORTURE YOURSELF
If you’ve been in bed and unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep for more than an hour just get up (or even if you don’t physically get up just pick up your book or your phone or whatever). This isn’t “Fine I’ll Just Stay Up All Night” this is “my cycling thoughts aren’t going to let me sleep so I’m gonna distract my brain by focusing on something else for a bit.”
If you try to force yourself to fall asleep you just get stuck in a “I should be asleep, why am I still awake, what the fuck is wrong with me just go to fucking sleep” thought pattern and keep yourself awake. Just. Play some tetris for a bit. You’ll probably get sleepy pretty soon.
C) BRING YOUR HYPERFIXATION TO BED. YES EVEN IF IT’S BLUE LIGHT.
Okay so I quit smoking about a year ago and that’s the thing that’s made the single biggest difference in my sleep schedule because when I was still smoking I’d sit in the garage next to the ashtray and read/write/draw/whatever and have a cigarette every once in a while. And then I’d get sleepy but I wouldn’t be able to motivate myself to stand up and go to bed until I was more awake at which point I got more engaged in whatever it was that I was doing.
When I quit smoking I started hanging out in bed and drawing or reading fanfic or whatever and the magical thing is that when I’m tired I can just put my phone or my notebook down and go to sleep. I even keep my meds and my phone charger and a bottle of water on my headboard so I don’t have to stand up and take my pills I just put my stuff down and go to sleep. This has taken me from an average bedtime of 4-5am to an average bedtime of 1-3am and sometimes I can even go to sleep at midnight if I’m tired enough. THIS IS MAGICAL AND HAS LITERALLY NEVER HAPPENED FOR ME BEFORE. I still have “whoops, got into this book and stayed awake until 5 am” nights once every couple of months but it is so much better than when that used to happen two or three times a week.
(that is, of course, with a work start time of 9am; left to my own devices or working a schedule I choose I’m more likely to be in bed by 7am and getting up at 2pm.)
D) Hey you know how they tell you to stop drinking caffeine at like, 5pm or some ridiculous bullshit? That made everything immeasurably worse for me. Honestly see if having a cup of coffee around bedtime helps.
E) TAKE FUCKING NAPS
Because here’s the deal, if you can’t get around the terrible and cruel dayperson’s schedule requirements then you’re going to just have to get used to dealing with less sleep and that is *terrible* for you but you can make it slightly less terrible by taking an afternoon or a just-off-work nap. And sometimes the nap will hit you really hard and you’ll sleep for like ten hours and then you’ll probably be awake too early but what, you probably didn’t even have enough of a sleep schedule to be worried about ruining it.
F) If you’ve got the hamster wheel going try to think about things that require your focus but that are kind of boring. I tend to either multiply by 3s until I can’t keep track and then start over OR I focus on feeling the pulse in every part of my body from my toes to my scalp and back down until I’m asleep.
GOOD LUCK.
Also, most devices do have a ‘night shift’ mode that makes the light more yellow, which can help. It takes some getting used to and isn’t a good idea if you’re using your device for art, but I’ve found it helps me.
Things that have helped me:
Only lay in your bed if you are actually trying to rest. Middle of the day wanting to read and maybe snooze is fine, but middle of the day wide awake but feeling lazy? Move to the couch. Make your brain associate being in the bed with actually resting. If you’re in a situation where the bed is the only place you get some privacy and you need to spend more time there than just resting, sit on your bed in different spot than where you lay to sleep.
Make some bedtime rituals. I know habit forming is hard, but just simple stuff like brush teeth, put on pjs, lay in bed to read, maybe play a level or two of a blandish puzzle game (for brain overload clearance purposes) when done consistently can get your brain to go “Ah, we are doing snooze time things, it must be snooze time.”
(via propheticfire)
