My family has mocked me my whole life for being lazy because of my sleep schedule. “The day is wasting,” “I’ve already done xyz before you’ve had your breakfast,” “Gee AlternatePersonMan, it’s 11am nice of you to join us.” They snicker and shake their heads.
I have kids now and only finally got diagnosed when my daughter struggled with sleep the same way I do. Huge eye opener. I had no idea this was ADHD related until a few months ago. It’s crazy how many issues there are that aren’t ‘focus’ specific.
Oh, those boasts of being productive in the morning.
On the flip side, I’m usually far more productive after everyone leaves me alone by going to bed.
All that stuff they got done between 8AM and noon, I get done between midnight and 4AM.
But when they wake up to see all that you’ve done, there’s almost never any recognition. It’s just business as usual. They never stop and say that you got a lot done last night or anything, they just keep tormenting you about how lazy you are that they’re achieving so much more stuff than you in the day when they have a 5 hour head start.
Oh, there will be more issues that you discover as well. Have fun ;) or don’t, I’m not your boss.
This has been my experience, too. They judge me for it but they don’t realize I’m awake for the same amount of time they are, just not at the same time.
Frankly, I don’t miss the human interaction that I’m not getting by staying up so late.
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Wait… that isn’t normal? That’s been my entire life
It could be nothing or it could be a neurodivergence, if you have other symptoms it’s worth getting evaluated
Not a lady but I have ADHD and have found smart lightbulbs that turn on at a granted time more effective at waking me up. Waking up @ 5 am = miserable. Waking up @ when it’s light (5 am alarm) = do able.
Damn, that sounds like something that would really help me out
I use blackout curtains like you too (used to do 3rd shift). Let me know how it works out if you try it. Could be just a me thing, but I hope it works for others too.
It also helps that they can do variable color temps. Cool blue (day light) vs warm yellow (candlelight) has a massive impact on energizing me too.
Can confirm, I usually use the app that also comes with automation so that at the time the alarm goes off the light slowly turns on then after a set time it turns off, it’s great to give me a perception of time and know when I should’ve already left the room.
I had to buy multiple to put on opposite sides of the room because I would just turn over and ignore it when I just had the one.
Same (sunlight alarm clock, getting up super early to compensate, and male) but also I have a heater on a timer-socket. When its super hot and bright its hard to stay in bed.
I think I cope by staying up super late and getting dead tired so I can power through at least 5 or 6 hours of sleep.
I cope by taking extra-strength sleeping gummies with melatonin and some other good shit, meditating, then hoping for the best. Most nights it actually works.
For anybody else relying on melatonin, there have been studies suggesting lower dosages work better, along with taking occasional breaks to reduce tolerance. I take 3mg every weeknight and take breaks from it during the weekend.
I’ve heard that too! I think 3mg is exactly what I take plus some herbal stuff that clearly makes a difference because when I took just melatonin tabs, they didn’t work as well.
I use low dosage quietiapine, which is an anti psychotic, but in low dosage, which calms my brain and stops the grinding.
I wish I had been prescribed these thirty years ago.
Just to add a clinical perspective, what this article describes is called “sleep onset insomnia”. While not symptomatic of ADHD by itself, it seems this article is saying people with ADHD might be more likely to experience this. The reasons for insomnia can be numerous. And people without ADHD can experience sleep onset insomnia too! Especially people with anxiety… But as for me, I tend to have restless sleep with early morning awakening insomnia. My spoons are empty by night time and it’s easy to drift off, but once the light hits my eyelids I enter go-mode.
Also keep in mind that this article was published by ADDitudeMag which is a somewhat complicated (if not controversial?) source.
Are you able to point me towards context for ADDitudeMag complicatedness? I wasn’t aware of any particular issues
Spoons?
Spoon theory is a useful way of explaining how mental and physical energy is rationed each day, through the eyes of someone with chronic illnesses or disability.
To snippet from Wikipedia, emphasis mine:
The spoons helped Miserandino to show the way that people with chronic illness often start their days off with limited quantities of energy. The number of spoons represented how much energy she had to spend throughout the day.
As Miserandino’s friend stated the different tasks she completes throughout the day, Miserandino took away a spoon for each activity. She took spoon after spoon until her friend only had one spoon left. Her friend then stated that she was hungry, to which Miserandino replied that eating would use another spoon. If she were to cook, a spoon would be needed for cooking. She would have to select her next move wisely to conserve her energy for the rest of the night.
Yeah that’s why when people tell me to just go to bed earlier I tell them it doesn’t help. I can take sleeping pills and pass out at 9 but I’m going to wake up 50 million times, have weird shallow fever dreams, and not fall asleep for real until 4 AM anyways so what’s the point? It’s not like it’s actually resting and then people give you shit for “sleeping 11 hours” when you finally get up so “late” at 8am.
Yeah, It takes me 11 hours in a quiet dark cold room to get 6 or 7 hours of sleep. My husband can lay down and fall asleep within minutes under any conditions (like on a couch at a party - no problem. On our living room floor while playing with our kid, no problem.
The only time I felt human was when I worked night shift. I can spend hours trying to fall asleep and I sleep like shit until around dawn, then I sleep like the dead until whenever I need to get up. When I worked night shift I’d get home around 7:30-8am, eat a small meal, shower, be in bed by 8:30-9:00 am, and if it took me more than 15 minutes to fall asleep it was unusual. I’d be out solid until anywhere from 2-5pm and wake up feeling refreshed and ready to go. When I switched from days to nights people who’d known me for years kept commenting on how my entire personality changed and how I was so much happier; for the first time in my entire life I wasn’t struggling through a constant haze all day every day.
I have an interview this week for a night shift job and my heart is absolutely dancing at the thought of getting back into that schedule again.
It is currently 4am and I am finally heading to bed.
Why? Work.
Am I tired? Eh, sorta.
Could I stay up? Probably.
Would I be tired later? Yes either way.
Literally the only difference I have found between getting 9 hours of somewhat broken sleep and not enough is that my body will struggle more with moving around for long periods. No matter what, even if I wake up having slept awesome, I will be tired by 3pm. Either it’s nap time or I struggle til 5p where I’ll start to wake up properly.
My schedule is back heavy. So this about checks out for the whole 12p-1p thing, with some fluctuation.
Course I have the unholy trifecta of depression, anxiety, and adhd. So, y’know…superpowers or something.
I feel the struggle! I wish more industries and the world in general was better adapted for the night owls around us. I wish you could get an office job that was 9pm to 5am, and I wish you could attend college classes in person overnight. Ever since Covid even grocery stores and places like Walmart and Target arent open past 10 or 11 pm anymore, instead of 24 hours like they used to be. Basically, I wish there was a whole different world that took place at night (and I’m not talking about partying, just those of us who wish to live normal life nocturnally). I’ve seen it put in the way like hundreds and thousands of years ago we would have been so useful to our “tribes”, because someone had to stay up overnight and watch for predators and bandits and such, but now there’s no need for that so our nocturnal abilities are forced to adapt to a world that tells us we’re useless lazy people for staying up late and sleeping during the day.
I’ve been working nightshifts exclusively for the last decade or so and can confirm. Although I prefer to go to sleep around 11:00 or 12:00 o’clock. That way I have the whole morning to do stuff. Also helps that I hate the midday heat and getting irradiated by nuclear fusion explosions. I prefer the cozy cool light of the Moon. Moon is highly underrated imo. One of the best space objects around.
I relate a lot to this. I also think I have Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder which is apparently meant to be common with ADHD. It takes hours to wake up if I get up before midday, it’s so annoying
Same, and there’s apparently nothing we can do about it 😭
4am to midday gang reporting in. In years of yore we would have guarded the fire and watched over the tribe while they slept. Wish I was a caveman tbh.
Yeah, when I don’t have anything to do the next day/am unemployed I revert back to staying up pretty much all night and then waking up at like 11 am or noon.
“Many of them say they are not fully alert until noon”
Me waking up at 2 pm: “yea”
Man, I hate it when people write things about me without permission
Sorta.
I do often wake up at 4, but the hyperactive part of ADHD is very strong with me. If I can fall asleep within a half hour, I’ll sleep normally until it’s time to wake up. But if I can’t fall back asleep, I get up for the day.
I only feel tired if I go back to sleep after 5. Otherwise the hyperactivity keeps me cruising along all day.I can honestly say I’ve slept through a bomb going off.
I slept through a literal hurricane.
I do wake up once or twice a night but have zero issue waking up to an alarm. I guess that’s one thing going for me.
I have the opposite - I have Sleep Maintenance Insomnia (TIL)
8o%?
“In my practice”. The 80% estimate isn’t really a meaningful number without sample size or other key context.
I probably should’ve been more clear, I was referencing that horrible font where the 0 looks like an o.
