One of the most overlooked aspects of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the sleeping disturbances caused about by the condition. Recent research confirms that it doesn’t go away during bedtime. For both adults and children with ADHD, the mere thought of quickly falling asleep, maintaining sleep, and then waking up suddenly and rejuvenating from rest is nothing but a dream. No scientific literature enlists ADHD as one of the causes of sleep disturbances. Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. says, “Sleep disturbances are common among adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. ” Most studies focused on the sleeping disturbances caused by intake of stimulant-class medications rather than ADHD as its leading cause. However, adults with ADHD know for a fact that there is a connection between their disorder and sleep problems. People who experience such call it “perverse sleep.” They want to sleep but continuously stay awake, and when they want to be awake, they are asleep. According to recent studies, there are four common sleep disorders connected with ADHD: initiation insomnia, restless sleep, difficulty in waking, and intrusive sleep.
Initiation Insomnia
75% of adults with ADHD reported experiencing an inability to settle down their minds to fall asleep at night. A lot of them describe themselves as night owls who receive spurts of energy at night, while others claim that they feel tired all throughout the day, but as soon as they’re about to sleep, their mind is bombarded with myriads of ideas and thoughts, worries, and anxiety. Their exact term is racing thoughts, which often prompted experts to misdiagnose them with bipolar mood disorder when, in fact, it is nothing but a state of mental restlessness of ADHD. Based on statistics, before puberty, 10 to 15 percent of children with ADHD have difficulty going to sleep. This is twice the rate in comparison to children and adolescents without ADHD. The rate significantly increases with age, reporting that about 50% of individuals with ADHD have problems falling asleep almost daily by the age of 12.5 years, and by the age of 30, nearly 80 percent spend more than an hour trying to fall asleep at night. Jonathan Stevens, M.D., M.P.H. advises to “Create a good sleep environment, which means a cool, dark room with minimal distractions.”
Restless Sleep
Individuals who were able to fall sleep usually are quite disturbed during their sleep. They would toss and turn and can easily awaken even by small noises. Often, their partners choose to sleep elsewhere since the individual with ADHD can sometimes kick or punch in bed. Individuals who are restless sleepers reported feeling tired and not refreshed after a night’s rest. “RLS can be highly disruptive to sleep, interfering with your ability to fall asleep and stay sleep—and leading to difficulty with daily functioning,” Michael J Breus Ph.D. explains.
Difficulty Waking
Individuals reported experiencing intermittent sleep interruption until 4 am in the morning and then they fall into a deep slumber “the sleep of the dead” in which they have problems rousing themselves. They can sleep through alarms and attempts of others to wake them up. This type of sleepers is irritable to the point of even being combative when roused until ready. Many are somewhat drowsy until noon.
Intrusive Sleep
Intrusive sleep occurs when the individual with ADHD loses interest in a particular activity in which makes his nervous system disengages and searches for something more interesting. At times, this disengagement is abrupt in which it can induce extreme drowsiness and sleep.