ADHD Experiment #9: The Night Owl Project
Yep, fixing my sleep by staying up late
Hello and welcome to the Chaotically Consistent Newsletter! For anyone who doesn’t know, I’m Savannah, the personal trainer with ADHD. I started this newsletter because I really enjoy creating and experimenting with processes and systems to make life easier for my brain, and I like sharing what I’ve been learning. Let’s get into it!
The Night Owl Project is my attempt to fix my sleep by embracing a night owl schedule.
Sounds backwards huh? I know.
In this letter I’ll be explaining:
my sleep struggles
my past with sleep
everything I’ve tried to do to fix it
my theories on why those things didn’t work (and what’s actually wrong)
and how I’m attempting to fix it now.
Before we get into the letter it’s important to me to give this quick disclaimer. I am not a therapist and I am not a sleep specialist. These letters are not a replacement for therapy or medical advice. If you have severe sleep struggles please go see a therapist or sleep specialist.
TLDR: I’m tired of being tired
The purpose of the Night Owl Project is to get a handle on my sleep. It wasn’t until a year or so after my diagnosis that I found out it’s common for ADHDers to struggle with sleep. There seems to be a multitude of reasons. Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome is one you hear about a lot. But I think the main one (at least for me) is the struggle to just fall asleep. Regardless of the time.
Every time I go to lay down at night it’s always a coin toss as to whether or not I’ll fall asleep at a reasonable time. Actually 50/50 odds are pretty generous. And it SUCKS. I’m TIRED OF IT (pun intended).
There’s so many things I want to do and my sleep is holding back a lot of them. Poor sleep means:
exercise sucks (I want to become a freaking weapon in the gym damnit)
a wonky appetite so healthy eating sucks
trying to focus on business work sucks
more stress so trying to relax sucks
You see what I’m getting at here?
Yes sometimes to grow you have to push forward. But pushing forward doesn’t do any good if something keeps pulling you back. And at this point, my sleep keeps pulling me back. By improving this one part of my life, improving all those other areas becomes easier.
I desperately want to be a morning person. I’ve tried for most of my life to become one. I do think it’s possible. But not before I tackle the root issue. That is the only way I believe I’ll be able to be a morning person sustainably.
Sleep has never been easy for me
This issue didn’t just randomly appear when I heard about it. I’ve struggled with sleep for as long as I can remember.
I remember being as young as 8 or 9 years old asking my aunt if I could borrow her Enigma CD. I wanted to put it on my iPod to try and use it to fall asleep to. It didn’t work. Multiple times I just laid in bed and listened to the whole freaking album.
I always hated bedtime because I hated having to lay there and just wait for sleep. I would procrastinate it often. Any way I could think of. Sneaking my DS into bed. Reading late into the night. Starting random crafts as quietly as I could. Anything
The only place I ever remember falling asleep easily was on car rides (still true now actually).
But weird music for an 8 year old wasn’t the only thing I tried.
To save us all some time I’m just gonna list these things out. If I gave a paragraph to everything I’d probably put you to sleep. Here’s everything I’ve tried that I can think of:
getting sunshine within an hour of waking
having strict bedtime at 2200 (10pm) and getting up at strict 15 minutes intervals which was supposed to train my association with my bed but just ended up pissing me off
maintaining a consistent sleep routine where I tried to keep a 2230-0730 schedule. It felt like I was trying to keep a house of cards standing, it always fell apart at the slightest unintentional breath
at home cognitive restructuring (a therapy technique)
at home autogenic training (a relaxation technique)
4-7-8 breathing
mind shuffling which is a method of getting the brain into something called the default mode network, it’s supposed to help the brain drift off (actually still one of my favorite tools)
evening sunshine and walks
blue light blockers
3 hour long bedtime routines that included no screens
so many different types of tea
magnesium glycinate
melatonin which I do not recommend as a daily btw
chill music
sleep music, and not only the super slow calming music but also the specific frequency and “theta” wavelength type of music
white/brown/pink/green noise, and probably some other colors too
bedtime stories
tart cherry juice
stretching
meditating
I even tried warm milk for a while
And that’s only the stuff I remember. Sleep and I have done this stupid dance for like 2 decades now.
I don’t half ass it either. Many of those things (AM sun, magnesium, meditating, maintaining routine) require some time of consistency before they show improvement. I assure you that I either worked at those for a long enough and consistent enough amount of time that I should have noticed a difference, or they were unsustainable enough that I could not maintain consistency no matter how hard I tried.
So what’s wrong?
It’s hard to know for sure, but I have some theories on why I struggle to fall asleep so much.
NOTE: I do sleep. Getting there is difficult. But I do sleep. I am not saying in this letter that I don’t. I actually sleep decent amounts most nights. And one thing I’m learning on this journey is to hold onto that fact (there’s reasons why but that will be for a future letter).
My issue is I’m not confident in my ability to fall asleep when I need to. Leading to not being confident that I’ll have quality energy the next day. And with the normal fluctuations in energy that come with ADHD I want to make sure I’m doing all that I can to support myself. Being confident and able to reliably fall asleep is a huge part of that.
Now I’m not saying all those things I listed in the last section don’t work or are inherently flawed. In fact I think a lot of them are quality habits that really improve sleep (not all of them though, looking at you melatonin 👀).
BUT it’s difficult to improve on a foundation that’s barely there. Trying to do all those things was like trying to load up on creatine and protein powder without actually going to the gym. The tools didn’t have anything of substance to work on.
I believe my sleep issues started young because of the ADHD. But I think they got worse when I was a teenager.
Another interesting thing I learned on the journey to understand sleep was that teenagers naturally have a delayed circadian rhythm. They naturally don’t get tired until after midnight and won’t want to get up until 9 or 10. No matter how hard they try this rhythm really can’t be shifted much at that age. If you remember being a teenager this might not surprise you. Honestly it’s bonkers to me that schools require kids to get up before 7 in some places. Who knows how much that hinders learning. But I could rant about that forever.
All that is fine and dandy. Here’s the kicker. I was one of those ADHD kids that fell into the people pleasing pipeline. I picked up pattern recognition skills to make it look like I was doing well in school and to make sure all the authority figures were pleased with me. But you know what I couldn’t fake? A good sleep schedule.
My theory as to why bedtime stresses me out so much is no matter how hard I tried to do the “right” thing that my parents, school, and society tried to get me to do (go to sleep and wake up early) I couldn’t do it. Physically it was impossible. I mean I woke up early sure. I had to get to school. But that didn’t mean I was able to fall asleep at night.
I spent so much of my teenage years like most of us did, walking zombies. And I spent those same years trying and failing over and over again to get on the “right” sleep schedule. No wonder bedtime is so stress inducing for me.
All that only got worse as I got older. The stress and anxiety about sleep was already there. It just kept multiplying every time I tried to “fix” my sleep. It’s so unbelievably frustrating to put so much effort into so many parts of my day, years on end, just to not feel tired night after night. And I believe that frustration is precisely the problem. For me, bedtime = frustration and anxiety.
This is why I believe all those things I listed might actually work, but just didn’t work for me at the time.
W. Chris Winter M.D. put it really well. He says that thinking sleep hygiene alone will fix sleep is like thinking just because you cleaned your house really well before a party means that everyone will have fun. It might help but it’s really not the root of the situation.
And I think I know how to fix it.
The experiment:
The rules (with explanations)
So now that you have the whole backstory, you understand when I say the goal of this experiment is to fix my relationship with sleep. I have a few rules that I split up into 2 categories, Ground Rules and Add-Ons.
The purpose of the Ground Rules are strictly to work on my association. These rules at the end of the day are going to be the ones that fix my relationship with sleep (if I’m right).
Add-Ons are rules I can be a bit more lenient with, but I want to incorporate because they have solid scientific or personal backing as to why they’re important (I’ll explain each).
Ground Rules
I’m not allowed to go to bed until I’m sleepy, regardless of what time it is
This is to prevent laying awake being stressed about falling asleep. Also this will hopefully train my body and brain that bed = sleepy.
I will get up out of bed if I’m not falling asleep and do something boring
This is probably the trickiest one because if I set like a 15 minute alarm to tell me when I haven’t fallen asleep in 15 minutes I’ll spend that entire time stressing about the stupid alarm. And won’t fall asleep. So I’ll be playing around with different approaches to this. For now I think my rule of thumb will be if I feel the urge to check the time (or dread about the possible time) it’s probably time to get up.
No alarm to wake up
If I have an alarm to wake up I’ll be laying awake doing math trying to figure out how much sleep I’ll get. I’ve also noticed lately I have quite a bit of anxiety when I wake up about just getting up so I’m hoping this will help with that as well.
Add-Ons
Sunlight as soon as I wake up
I could write a whole letter on how cool this concept is alone but for the purpose of not making this letter a novel I’ll give you the super condensed version. Essentially the human circadian rhythm runs slightly longer than 24 hours. Getting sunlight in the morning helps reset that clock so I’m feeling sleepy at a decent time. Otherwise with the association rules above eventually I’d be on a fully nocturnal schedule.
No coffee and no tea caffeine after 1200
So this one is a bit dramatic, as I’ll likely have coffee as a little treat on the weekends. But I will not be drinking it every morning. The strength of coffee increases my anxiety at this point in my life. And reducing anxiety is like the main point of this whole experiment. Plus caffeine can stay in your system for up to like 10 or 12 hours and I’m typically laying down around midnight to 1am. Sources seem to vary (probably because of genetic differences) on the actual time, so I decided to play it safe. If this experiment is going to work I want to remove as many variables that impact sleepiness as possible.
Done eating by 2200
This one is based more on personal experience than science. There are claims that digesting food can impact sleep. Which I believe. But I also know trying to fall asleep hungry usually doesn’t work for me either. That’s why this one is an add on. If I finish eating all my meals by 2200 and I feel good than great. But if I’m hungry I’m not going to suck it up for the sake of preventing mild sleep disturbances
No tech after 2300
I won’t lie, this one was real close to being a ground rule. Blue light does impact melatonin production and therefore sleepiness. BUT I know me so I know if I try to set a hard and fast rule like this, cutting out something I’m used to, I will crash and burn. Not to mention I would classify this as sort of a supplemental action, sorta like the AM sun. So it’s something I will be working on, especially because when I want to shift to an earlier bedtime I can work on shifting this time back as like a catalyst. Like a transition step.
Theories on those rules
My main theory is that the ground rules will help ease the pressure so I’ll feel more relaxed around bedtime.
If I don’t know what it feels like to easily fall asleep, I won’t know what to shoot for. So in an effort to learn how to fall asleep easily AND quickly I’m removing the pressure of getting to bed and waking up by a certain time.
I’m using the same principle that I used when healing my relationship with food. I’m taking away the strict rules (outside of what I listed, which will be re-evaluated if they cause any anxiety) in order to build a relationship free of guilt, shame, and expectation.
As I’ve been trying to implement these rules I’m noticing other difficulties come up, which is a good thing! Since the anxiety and stress is slowly being taken out of the equation, I’m able to see other environmental or procedural issues that I can work on systemizing.
Conclusion
If I’m right, this experiment will help me fix how I feel about going to sleep and waking up. Hopefully developing the “skill” of falling asleep. And if that’s the case, my hope is that eventually I’ll be able use that “skill” to shift to going to bed and waking up earlier. Not that I think it’s necessary to wake up super early. But I love being up in the mornings. I just need to find a way to make it sustainable.
Are there other ways I could’ve gone about this? Absolutely. In fact I know I’m really lucky to be in a situation where I can do something like this. CBT-i is a fantastic option for anyone looking to improve their sleep. In fact that’s basically what I’m trying to do just on my own.
In addition to the rules I’m also trying to learn as much as I can about sleep. The more info I have to work with when thinking about processes and such the better. I’ve only listened to a couple sources so far.
I have listened to a good chunk of Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, PhD. It is a very interesting book in understanding a lot of the nitty gritty science behind sleep, but so far hasn’t really told me anything I didn’t know in terms of improving it.
The Sleep Solution by W. Chris Winter M.D. has been giving much more actionable advice and I’m not that far into it so I look forward to what ever else I might learn.
Before I close out I want to reiterate that I am not a therapist of sleep specialist. This experiment isn’t just about setting up some rules to follow. There’s also a lot of mindset work that goes with it to make sure these rules work. I really believe that I have the necessary tools to do that mindset work because of my time spent in therapy. If you have sleep struggles please go see a therapist or sleep specialist.
That’s all for this letter. Sweet dreams!
-Savannah
