#78🥱 The importance of sleep when you have ADHD
How ADHD doesn't go away when you're asleep.
Welcome to Tech Atypically 👋, your weekly blog for navigating the challenges of ADHD and being in the tech industry.
I am an ADHD and product management coach helping you change one belief and take one action each week.
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Part 3 of the Self-Care series
🦋 The Takeaways
Belief: If I had a little more willpower I could sleep better.
Reality: ADHD symptoms don’t go away when you sleep.
Action: Grant yourself the kindness that not sleeping well is not your fault.
⭐️ Introduction
I’ve been battling sleep deprivation for over the last month. I go to bed anxious that I won’t sleep. I’ll toss and turn to try to sleep and then wake up tired.
As I struggle through the day, I’ll tell myself “I’ll go to bed early and get caught up”. “This is the night it will happen. I’ll sleep through the night.”
Then I stay up late because of sleep procrastination and start the cycle again. Then I’ll shame myself for not being able to “just focus” during the day.
It’ll cause me to forget something my boss just told me. Or misread something and do the wrong thing. I’ll beat myself for the embarrassment and do it again the next day.
This is my negative sleep cycle and I need to break out of it.
If you have ADHD, you probably struggle with sleep too. Today I discuss why sleep can be difficult for those with ADHD, how it impacts you at work, and two strategies to get better sleep.
💭 The Belief – Willpower will give me better sleep
If you’re in tech, you probably overlook sleep because you’re often so focused on being “focused or productive” during the day, you don’t look at what you’re doing at night.
You probably think “I just have to go to bed at a regular time or just have a little more willpower”. Maybe, but the problem is a lot larger than that.
Sleep challenges for those with ADHD are real. 25-50% of people with ADHD report having sleep challenges (source)
Sleep impacts almost every part of our life and body. Sleeping 7-9 hours a night is associated with better cognitive function, emotional regulation, weight management, physical performance, physical coordination, and overall health, to name a few (source).
Did you notice something about the list? They’re probably things you are struggling with or wish you had more of every day.
Everything I listed here is something I struggle with in part due to my ADHD. Even though I know medically, that getting better sleep would help reduce my symptoms, I still stayed up too late last night watching TV.
If only I had enough willpower…
🔍 The Reality - ADHD doesn’t go away when you sleep
Willpower isn’t the issue, there are real medical challenges to sleep when you have ADHD.
Here’s my favorite quote in researching this article:
“Just as ADHD does not go away at adolescence, it does not go away at night either. It continues to impair life functioning 24 hours a day.” (source).
This was a big aha moment because I always thought of my brain as shutting down while I sleep. I’m asleep, so things should be quieter and slow down for my ADHD brain, right?
Nope. It’s still as busy as ever, making it hard to stay asleep.
Here are some common ADHD challenges to sleep.
Rumination racing thoughts: Difficulty "shutting off" their minds at night, with thoughts jumping from one worry to another. This can prevent you from falling asleep and spiking your anxiety.
Difficulty falling asleep: About 75% of adults with ADHD report trouble falling asleep at night. Many describe themselves as "night owls" who get a burst of energy when the sun goes down. (source)
This could be due to Delayed Sleep Syndrome, a circadian rhythm disorder where your internal body clock is out of sync with the typical day-night cycle.
Restless sleep: Once asleep, experiencing restless sleep. Tossing and turning or waking up throughout the night. I sometimes get woken up by random songs playing in my head or by random bouts of panic about something I need to do.
Trouble waking up: More than 80% of adults with ADHD struggle to wake up in the morning. They may sleep through multiple alarms and have difficulty transitioning from sleep to wakefulness.
It’s hard to wake up when you’re constantly interrupted by random thoughts, a 6-year-old waking you up, and your ADHD brain saying, “Work more”.
Sleep isn’t a willpower issue or a matter of “just turning off”. It faces the same neurobiological challenges of ADHD that you have during the day.
🛠️ The Action - Be kinder to yourself and sleep
There are too many root causes of why your sleep is impaired and strategies to address them for me to write them here. If you’d like more depth, I recommend this Additude article goes in-depth into more sleep science and strategies.
I’ll stick to two sleep strategies that I recently implemented for myself.
Sometimes the problem is anatomical - Talk to an ear, nose, throat (ENT), and Sleep doctor. I recently did this and it was life-changing. For years I was told my constant stuff nose and mouth breathing at night was due to allergies.
Turns out my airway was blocked due to some enlarged parts of my sinuses, and I have sleep apnea.
After surgery, I can breathe through my nose for the first time in 20 years and I sleep better with a CPAP machine.
Implement the 10-3-2-1-0 routine:
10 hours before bed: No more caffeine
3 hours before bed: No more food or alcohol
2 hours before bed: No more work
1 hour before bed: No more screen time
0: The number of times you hit the snooze button in the morning
I like this as an in-the-moment reminder of what actions I should take to get the best sleep.
✨ Conclusion
I published this week’s newsletter 7 days late mostly because I haven’t been sleeping well. I’ve been breaking most of the 10-3-2-1-0 rules daily.
It’s due to a mix of needing to work extra hours, drinking more alcohol to cope, getting used to my CPAP machine, my child waking me up at night, and the new realization that I’m lactose intolerant (yay me).
It’s ok though. I’ll try to sleep better again tonight. Not with more willpower, but with a little more kindness for myself because ADHD is a 24/7 challenge. Even when I’m asleep.
And so is lactose intolerance.
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⏭️Next Week
Exercise and knowing when it recharges us or grinds us down.