Author: Kathy Marshack

In sleep deprived ADHD households, 57% of parents sleep less than six hours per night. Most children suffering from attention deficit disorders often struggle to fall asleep or to stay asleep. More than 50% of children are waking up to 4 times during the night and are fully awake before 6am, according to an article published in ADDitude magazine.

You don’t outgrow ADD. Children suffering from ADHD and sleeping problems will carry their difficulties into their adulthood. Studies have shown that not getting enough rest can worsen the symptoms, leading to loss of emotional control and irritation.

I’m regularly available for consultations and you should always get professional help. I also wrote about how much sleep your brain needs in a previous blog post. Below you can find few tips that I have gathered along the way and you can try on your own to help you sleep better:

Sleep Study

When are you going to bed? Are you actually going to bed when you say you are? How many times are you waking up during the night?

Track these patterns to better understand your sleeping problem. You can easily find apps that are doing it for you or you can go with the classic pen and notebook. Check your notes regularly as you try different methods of improving your sleep to see if they are helping or not.

Less Caffeine, More Sport

We all enjoy a good coffee, but if it’s within 2 or 3 hours before your bed time, it’s a sure way to keep you awake. Many people don’t drink coffee after 1pm. Similarly to this, naps are a great way to energize your body, but are not beneficial to an ADHD person as they are taking away precious tiredness from your night sleep.

Increasing the level of activity has proven to help. So take your dog for longer walks or walk when you can, instead of driving everywhere.

Avoid Sleep Traps

Playing Angry Birds under the covers, hiding from your partner, is a big NO. Mindlessly scrolling on social media will keep you awake and affect your mental health in the long term. The blue light from the screen is the biggest intruder in the night. Don’t spend time in from of a TV or a computer after 9pm.

Let the Night Come

Instead of becoming a scrolling slave, prepare your brain and body for sleep. Take a warm, relaxing shower, listen to a podcast, meditate and relax your muscles or turn on a shooting music playlist.

Help your racing brain wind down before bed. Ask help from your family to keep you on track.

Consistent Routine

Create your own waking up and winding down routine. It’s important to have a routine to give your brain a little nudge to get ready to wake up or to go to sleep. Putting a daily clock alarm, an hour before bed, will give you a gentle push to get ready for the end of the day.

Once you discover what works best for you, do it every day consistently. This will increase the quality of your sleep by allowing your body to get into a daily rhythm, something beneficially especially for children and adults with ADHD.

 

ADHD is always awake, but that doesn’t mean you need to constantly suffer from restless nights and exhausting mornings.

Share your experience with our community and let us know what worked for you!

High-quality sleep is essential for optimal health. I’ve discovered that Neuro Emotional Technique is very effective for clearing stress and tension that is keeping you awake at night. If you live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA please contact my office and schedule an appointment. Online therapy is also available, if that works best for your busy schedule.

In the Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers listed our Rights as “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”? The word pursuing involves obtaining something that you don’t have yet.

 

I have good news for you: you have control over your happiness! According to Eric Barker (in this article from “Barking Up The Wrong Tree”) 40% of our happiness is within our control. I know it’s not as easy as it sounds, but it is a conscious choice. By doing the right things, you can create good habits and improve your levels of happiness with the 40% that is yours to use.

So what can you do? Here are 3 things I gleaned from Barker’s research:

You should talk about your feelings.

No man or woman is an island and what one thing do happy people have in common? Strong relationships.

Look around and discover who is in your support network. Who is rooting for you and who can you do activities with? Write names down. It’s good to remember the people you have around you and who are forming your inner circle.

Your social life needs nurturing for a happier life. As a therapist I’ve observed first-hand how much better my clients feel when they’ve had the opportunity to talk about their concerns. It’s interesting that scientific research is backing that up. According to a study from the University of California (“Putting Feelings Into Words Produces Therapeutic Effects in the Brain” from 2007), describing emotions like grief and disappointment can put the brakes on brain activity that generates those feelings. By using MRI scans researchers saw changes in the brain when participants described the scary or sad faces they saw.

Build healthy habits and say no to unhelpful ones.

Remember the terrible things that happened in the past, but now seem funny? Laugh and laugh hard. Your brain loves humor! The more you laugh at life, the better you will feel.

Start building your life around good habits, one at a time, with baby steps. If something helps you relax and increases your productivity, do more of that. Make a plan, have a goal and then reward yourself.

Practice less self-criticism and more self-assurance. Self-criticism can easily lead to a bad mood. Beating yourself up over things you cannot control won’t make you be or feel better. Liking yourself will.

Try to practice self-gratitude daily for the next week and come back to tell me how you feel.

Get involved more.

Don’t give your brain time to laze around and think of all the things you are not good enough at, but instead start doing more to obtain more results.

Now is the best time to take care of your hobbies and your passions. Your life goals and what you decide to do about them have a big impact on your life satisfaction and therefore on your happiness. You alone are in charge of it.

Those who place high priority on family life are also happier, than those who place priority on their work or money alone. So ask the help of your family and do activities together.

 

Never give up on finding a treatment that works for you and your happiness. You matter and you are important. One type of treatment may work for one person, whereas a different treatment will help another person better. As a qualified psychologist and N.E.T practitioner, I’ve seen many clients respond well to alternative, holistic treatments. These include dietary supplements, mind-body therapies, chiropractic or osteopathic manipulation, massage, movement therapies, specialized diets, and neuro-emotional technique.

There are ups and downs in the process of living. Sometimes our problems turn out to be gifts that provide us opportunities to grow as individuals. If you’d like to explore your options and you live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA please contact my office and schedule an appointment.