Translating ADHD Podcast

Episode: Sleep and ADHD: Strategies for Better Rest

Hosts: Asher Collins (“Ash”) & Dusty Chipura (“Dusty”)
Release Date: April 21, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode examines the difficult, universally relevant topic of sleep for adults with ADHD. Through storytelling, coaching insights, and strategic suggestions, Ash and Dusty explore why sleep is such a recurring issue for their clients, the challenges unique to neurodivergent sleep, and practical (and compassionate) strategies for improvement. Rather than prescribing a single solution, they emphasize experimentation, personalization, and breaking overwhelming change into manageable steps.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Sleep Is So Challenging with ADHD

• Prevalence & Impact:

  • “I have heard it said that up to 90% of people with ADHD struggle with some sleep issue or another… and it can be so disempowering and frustrating to hear just like the same basic ass… suggestions being thrown at you.” (Dusty, 01:15)
  • Chronic sleep issues, from insomnia and sleep procrastination to delayed sleep phase disorder, are deeply intertwined with executive function, mood, long-term health, and core ADHD features.

• Difficulty Connecting Cause and Effect:

  • “We are not good at noticing. We are not good at connecting my grumpy mood today to my lack of sleep last night… clients don’t even know what well rested feels like.” (Ash, 02:43)

• Sleep Procrastination & "Me Time":

  • Many with ADHD delay sleep because nighttime is the only meaningful personal time, leading to a cycle of staying up late, feeling perpetually behind, and being perpetually underslept.

2. The Importance of Noticing—What Does Well-Rested Even Feel Like?

([06:06-08:02])

• First Step: Experience Rest

  • “If you haven’t had that experience… perhaps that’s a first goal for you, is to get that one or two nights of really solid sleep and to make sure that you’re reflecting on that. What is different when you’re well slept?” (Ash, 06:06)

• Notable Quote:

  • “There is no substitute for the evidence of how much better it feels… Now that I know how much better it feels, … it’s an easy thing for me to prioritize.” (Ash, 07:14)

3. The Neurobiology of ADHD and Sleep

([08:02-11:06])

• Why Sleep Is Boring:

  • “The ADHD part of your brain hates sleep. Like, it represents a state of lower stimulation. It’s very boring to go to sleep. Your brain never wants to be bored. It never wants to be unoccupied.” (Dusty, 09:34)

• Revenge Bedtime Procrastination:

  • Adults (with/without kids) often overwork or skip fun, putting off bedtime for a sense of “completing the day”.

• The Importance of Transition:

  • “If you want to go to bed, … you have to kind of wind down. … Lower the lights. Put away the to-do list. … Sometimes I liken this to foreplay… we kind of need to do the same thing with sleep.” (Dusty, 10:05)

4. Individualizing Routines & Rituals

• Creating Transition Rituals:

  • For many, success comes from “moving up the boring steps” (teeth, pajamas) then allowing for lower-key, enjoyable time before bed (“the carrot”). (Ash, 11:06)

• Personal Adaptations:

  • TV in bed, knitting, or crafts might “break” conventional sleep advice but can work for ADHD brains.
  • “For me, like watching an episode or two of a TV show in bed and here I’m breaking tons of good sleep rules. But for me… it works.” (Ash, 11:37)

• Not One-Size-Fits-All:

  • Ash’s story of a client who’s a natural night owl: Instead of forcing an earlier bedtime, they shifted the morning rhythm to allow a slow, less rushed start—even if it meant keeping a midnight bedtime.
  • “He was like, well, it worked, but I hate that it worked… it didn’t have as much of an impact as I would have liked… The solution: keep midnight bedtime, but slow, luxurious mornings.” (Ash, 13:42-15:58)

5. Slicing Off Manageable Pieces

([19:18-23:07])

• Avoiding All-or-Nothing Thinking:

  • Overhauling sleep with every possible technique at once can be overwhelming. Instead, “let’s slice off one piece, right? … Just do that part and let’s see if that alone has any impact.” (Ash, 19:54)

• Small Experiments:

  • This could be just moving up the bedtime routine, focusing only on getting into bed on time, or just improving the morning experience—allowing learning about what actually helps.

6. Out-of-the-Box Strategies & Hacks

• Environment Matters:

  • “Having a really nice set of sheets and pillows… Nobody wants to go to bed in [a] bed [with] piles of crap in the back… Seems like fluff, but it works.” (Dusty, 23:07)

• Reframing the Morning Routine:

  • “My client… started calling… time every morning to do just something that he wanted to do and calling it ‘luxury time’. … If your morning routine is: play some video games… have your favorite breakfast. That’s motivating.” (Dusty, 23:34-24:06)

• Tech Tools Used Creatively:

  • The Alarmy app: “What he did is he taped a photo on his ceiling right above his bed, and he used that as the image. So the alarm… at night… had to go lay in his bed horizontally, point the phone at the ceiling and match the photo. … it’s just that one thing.” (Dusty, 24:24)

• Systems Can Start Several Steps "Upstream":

  • Sleep interventions sometimes require work on adjacent issues: organizing the bedroom, improving exercise, or addressing stress.

7. When Simple Hacks Aren’t Enough

([26:00-30:00])

• For the “Hopeless” Cases:

  • “Some people have the kind of nervous system where they might have to do all the sleep hygiene things every night… And that sucks, and that’s a bummer. But you get to choose: is the sleep outcome worth [the effort]?” (Dusty, 26:44)

• Medication and Medical Intervention:

  • Melatonin can help, but “a lot of people take it wrong… take a baby dose at like 6, take a baby dose at 8… slowly mimic what your brain is supposed to do.” (Dusty, 27:52)
  • Sleep specialists and neurodivergent-informed CBT for insomnia (like with Sleepworks) can help when self-help isn’t enough.

• Compassion Over Shame:

  • “If you are one of those people struggling with some kind of more… higher level of insomnia and sleep issues just know that… you’re not alone. It’s more common among neurodivergent people… And that’s okay, we got to do what we got to do.” (Dusty, 29:33)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Sleep is one of the things that is most moralized in our productivity obsessed society… If you are not able to get enough sleep and be on time to work, you are judged very, very harshly for that in most circumstances.” (Ash, 30:15)

• On Experimentation:

  • “Pick off a slice, any slice—whether it’s evening, whether it’s morning, whether it’s the transition… try something and then step back and evaluate what worked or didn’t work about it…” (Ash, 31:07)

• On Grief & Sleep:

  • “It’s a really tough grief… if you struggle with sleep and people think it’s about willpower or responsibility. You’re not alone.” (Dusty, 29:50)

Major Timestamps

• 00:56 – "Sleep: the terror of all people with ADHD."
• 01:15 – ADHD sleep issues prevalence, impact on life.
• 02:43 – Connection between sleep and mood/function; clients unable to identify well-rested baseline.
• 06:06 – First step: get a reference experience of good sleep.
• 09:34 – ADHD brains resist sleep as “boring.”
• 10:05 – 11:06 – Importance of transition routines and “sleep foreplay.”
• 13:42–15:58 – Client case: customizing routines to allow for chronotype and preferred schedules.
• 19:18 – Slicing sleep challenges into manageable pieces.
• 23:07 – Creative environmental and tech strategies.
• 26:44–29:50 – When simple tricks fail: compassion and seeking higher interventions.
• 30:15 – Sleep as invisible disability in a moralizing culture; recap and closing strategies.

Takeaways

• Sleep is a core ADHD challenge: Most people with ADHD struggle with sleep in some form.
• Self-experimentation is key: There’s no universal solution—try small changes, measure, and adapt.
• Transitions matter: Both in routine structure and in managing expectations (“sleep foreplay”).
• Shed shame around sleep struggles: Recognize structural and physiological barriers, not just willpower deficits.
• Seek help if needed: Medication, medical consults, and neurodivergent-informed therapy are valid and sometimes necessary steps.

In the hosts’ own words:
“Try something and then step back and evaluate what worked or didn’t work about it and kind of use that information to inform what you might try next.” (Ash, 31:07)

(Content from [Translating ADHD, 4/21/25]. Summary by podcast summarizer. For ADD/ADHD coaching and resources, see episode description.)