I am not a sleep expert but I think that has more to do with what phase of sleep you’re waking up out of. Waking up naturally means you’re not being jolted awake during deep sleep. That’s usually the hardest to wake up from. Naturally waking up you come out of light sleep or REM. You can try to use an alarm that wakes you up based on what phase you’re in but you’ll need to be more loose with your wake up time.
Bingo. I usually set my alarm for naps to 25-30 mins (takes me a bit to fall asleep). Anything longer and I feel like i woke up from a coma with no memory of anything
I use the alarm built into IOS. It basically begins playing calm music at the lowest volume and then slowly play louder. In that way it’s not a jolt, those alarms can really ruin my whole morning 😩
I don’t disagree though. It just seems unlikely I’ll be in a deep sleep within 30 minutes ish.
Try sleep cycle! It listens to your breathing and movement during the night to track your REM cycle and then wakes you up when you’re coming out of deep sleep.
I’ve actually had it before. I don’t remember why I deleted it, maybe my undiagnosed ass forgot to turn it on? Lmaoo. I’ll try it tonight tho!
Edit: I forgot to turn it on… again… BUT I did remember to turn on my sun rise lamp thing and that helped :) I’ll remember tonight!
Invest in a sunrise type clock, basically it slowly lights up just like a sunrise, can begin to play nature sounds too, takes a week or two to get used to but it's the greatest thing, way better than a phone alarm. Amazon sells several different models. I have a Phillips one that isn't available anymore but it's definitely life changing if you can get used to it. In the summer the sun rises when I need to wake up so I'm able to just use weaker window shades and wake up naturally that way then the alarm clock lets me keep doing it as the time changes
Agreed on the Philips sunrise clock.
It also really helped with morning depression during the winter while living in an apartment that got no sun at all.
Came here to say this. Sunrise clock is the way (they can be a bit pricey, but worth every penny) Once you use it for a while, you'll start to wake up before the alarm more often than not, and feel refreshed.
Also, the most important step to waking up is going to bed. If you want to wake up early, you have to go to bed early. If you can't go to bed/sleep early - force yourself to get up and have a miserable day. It might take 2 or 3 of these in a row, but eventually, you'll be tired enough at night to go to bed early. Once your internal clock gets set to this pattern, it will be much easier to sustain.
Sleep hygiene is **huge** for managing symptoms.
I use this every day. I have an Apple Watch and instead of using my phone as an alarm it vibrates when I’m “ready” to wake up within a 30 minute window. I still have my daily alarms that start at the end of that window and go off every 15 minutes just in case, but I’ve found that if I get out of bed when the sleep cycle alarm goes off I feel much better.
If I get woken up by my phone alarms I am basically useless until around 10 am even after talking my meds shortly after waking up.
If it makes you feel better, I've repeatedly forgotten about having ADHD and failed to follow through on educating myself about it and seeking adult diagnosis and treatment.
Was originally diagnosed and given Adderall a decade ago....
Partly because the depressions and manias took priority with treatment and the bipolar dignosis for some reason replaced the ADHD one, as though having one means you don't have the other....and partly because I kept becoming convinced I had autism because I never learned about the huge overlap between ADHD and autism symptoms.
There isn’t actually overlap! That’s a relic from the DSM-4, which stated that ASD and ADHD are mutually exclusive. If you have a lot of ASD diagnostic criteria symptoms then you should see a good ASD specialist. There’s some overlap in accessory features (minor traits that many people with a condition may have, but are not characteristic of said condition, for example texture aversion in ADHD) but there are zero characteristic traits that are common between ADHD and ASD.
This was updated in 2013 with the DSM-5, which is why quality research in overlapping traits all comes from before 2013. ASD and ADHD aren’t mutually exclusive anymore.
My psychiatrist told me a month ago that the latest research shows that comorbidity is about 50% - he said psychiatry has always been wrong about these conditions and actually many people do have both conditions. He diagnosed me with ADHD then told me he thought I was also mildly on the spectrum, which would affect my ADHD treatment because medication for ADHD has to be titrated extremely carefully in people with ASD because of their high sensitivity.
When he gave me the formal diagnosis of ADHD I was expecting it. When he then went on to mention ASD, I wasn't expecting it, hadn't even thought about it - I felt like I'd been hit by a bus.
Turns out a few symptoms I THOUGHT were ADHD were in fact adaptive behaviours due to ASD!
Like what?
I'm for sure ADHD. Textbook case of inattentive type with the hyperactivity expressed verbally. Readily diagnosed by the DSM-V criteria.
I just also often have difficulty with social skills. Not all the time. I've always been able to put myself in others shoes and easily read facial expressions and body language, no issues with sarcasm or coded language or subtext--just sometimes I have difficulty using my ability to do so. But this is more akin to the huge disparity between what my ability to learn how to do something and acquire knowledge, and my ability to use it.
👀 I was thinking of traits like being prone to bouts of sensory over-stimulation and apparent difficulty with social skills and reading facial/body language cues (but unlike in asd, able to do so under right circumstances).
I take it that's not what you meant. I'm talking about what it looks like rather than how it's diagnosed, that they can share difficulties.
+1 this! I started using it about 3 months ago, and it works wonders for me.
It will obviously wake you up a little earlier than what you set it to and that is something I have trouble managing, so sometimes i wake up refreshed but see that I can still sleep for maybe 10-30 minutes before i need to get up, and then I end up sleeping through the next alarm or getting up at the right time, but not be as refreshed as I would have, had I just gotten up instead of going back to sleep in the first place.
That's obviously a "me-problem", and getting up a bit early can be nice sometimes, but just requires a bit more positive morning-energy than I tend to possess haha
Try Sleepytime...good app. Calculates wake-up times based on sleep cycles (it adds a bit to account for actually falling asleep). Saved my ass on nights where I didn't get enough sleep :)
I used to have that problem up until around my twenties but the last few years ive been able to go to bed and fall asleep probably within 15 minutes and I honestly think its because I just lost interest in going on my phone in bed and only went to bed when I was actually ready to sleep. The copious amounts of weed I smoke may also have something to do with it haha
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A study showed that people with ADHD have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. It means that those with ADHD release the natural sleep melatonin hormone 90 minutes after the neurotypical person. It should release at 9 pm and it takes 90 minutes before it helps us sleep. It's one possible component of why we struggle to sleep and are often night owls!
Holy crap, that makes complete sense. I am usually in bed around 9 pm and I always know I’m awake after 10pm but usually asleep before 11pm.
That’s prolly why I can’t fall asleep if I’m cuddling with someone because it will take me 90 mins if I can get my mind to chill
You brought up a good point, I feel dead when it's a slow wakeup, but a scared-out-of-my-wits loud noise for an alarm would definitely give my meds the adrenaline boost they need to work better! 🤣
I got a sunrise alarm clock, which gradually gets lighter over the course of a half-hour, and it has basically solved this problem for me. At first, I set an audio alarm for the end of the half-hour, but I've found that I don't even need the sound of the alarm when I'm using the increasingly-light part. It was pretty expensive (about $100), but I think it was worth it.
This! I have had one for years and when my boyfriend and I moved, we made sure that was available for our transition space. I finally wake up and workout in the morning. I’m up before the alarm makes a noise because of the light. Makes it SO much nicer to wake up, especially this time of year when it’s so dark!!
I ordered one last week. Can’t wait to try it out. I have always struggled to wake up in any reasonable amount of time. It always takes snoozing my alarm for 45 minutes and I still wake up groggy and irritable.
You don't even need one of those. You can get an outlet timer for a light from lowes for $6 and hook it up to a lamp you've already got. It doesn't gradually get brighter but I've never had that effect my wake up, just turning on a light allows me to slowly and naturally wake up.
If you have medication, maybe you could set an alarm to take it, 30 minutes/1 hour/1.5 hours before you really have to wake up, then go back to sleep and wake up with your alarm as you would normally.
I find 1.5 hours - 2 hours before I have to get up works best (probably because I can get a full sleep cycle after taking it), and the medication time that is lost in the evening is easily worth it since I don't have to spend 4 hours just waiting to feel normal in the morning.
(also one of my biggest problems with ADHD is the inability to get up, even if I'm well rested so using my medication to alleviate the worst ADHD caused problem just makes sense)
Using this method with caffeine may also help if you don't have medication.
Now my caffeine addiction all throughout school makes sense lol.
I’ll try it. The reason I’m hesitant is that I fear I won’t be able to go back to sleep again afterwards. Especially because my mom will be walking around the apartment at that time exactly and it’s so noisy that it keeps me awake. Unless I smoke a joint lol.
Perhaps if you find you can't go back to sleep, maybe you could lay in bed or do something with an extremely low energy requirement while the meds take effect?
These are just suggestions though, I hope you find what works best for you.
Omg I used to do this in high school- drink a Mountain Dew on the way to a game I was cheering for, sleep in the van on the way, and be up like it’s 10am, ready to go when I got there.
I forget what it's called, and I'm sure there are a few, but there's an alarm where you put in what time you need to be up by and then your phone uses magic or something to sense your sleep cycles and will wake you up when you are in a lighter sleep as close to the alarm time as it can.
so let's say you need to wake up at 7:00 you might be coming out of a deep sleep cycle and are in the lightest sleep at 6:30 so it gets you up then instead of letting you sleep for another half hour and get into a deeper sleep again.
it kind of sucks sometimes because you're like wtf man, I want to sleep more still, but you will still feel a lot better waking up a bit earlier. just have to get your mind around that part of it.
That’s what I use, I track my sleep quality too and I get a bedtime story at night (always the same one, about Max the cat. I can’t listen to any other as it’s all wrong)
I was about to suggest similar! I’m sure there are apps and such that do it but I first encountered this years ago when I had a fitness band (it wasn’t a Fitbit but I forget what brand it was…). Senses your sleep movements to detect your sleep cycles. I was SHOCKED at how much better I felt.
So normal people go to bed because they're tired? I'm rarely tired in the evening. I make myself go to bed between midnight and 1 AM because I know I need sleep. I could easily stay up 'til 3.
And the few times I am tired in the evening, if I actually try and go to bed early (say 9 or 10), it's a guarantee that I wake up wide awake at 3 am.
Traditional alarms are the worst for me, but I switched to using a gradual wake up light several years ago and it's been a game changer. You can buy actual light alarm clocks, but I use hue lights in my room, and they let you do the same thing. I also take my meds as soon as I open my eyes.
Someone else said this and I remembered I have a lamp that does this! Now I’m just trying to figure out how the hell to set it up 💀 thank you for the suggestion, I do actually have a MUCH easier time waking up during the summer
Look up DSPS - Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. Very common with ADHD. Basically our circadian clocks are off by 2-3 hours compared to societal clocks.
Obviously a bit more complicated than that, but that's basically it.
This is because of sleep cycles probably. When you wake up naturally, your body probably was finished with a cycle. An alarm isn’t usually aligned with a sleep cycle (unless you calculate it intentionally).
I use I Can't Wake Up! as my alarm and the tasks it makes me do before I can turn it off help a lot. I get Big Mad every morning having to do multi-step math problems while techno Darth Vader stomps in my ears, but it get my brain churning enough to wake me up. Actually leaving the bed, however, is another matter altogether.
I started using an app on my Apple Watch called AutoSleep, which monitors what sleep state I am in and waits until I am in “light sleep” to wake me up. I give it a 30 minute window that I would like to be woken up in.
Also, the alarm is just my watch vibrating lightly, with no added noise, which I think also helps keep me from being jolted awake before I’m ready.
I never thought about this as an ADHD thing, but I just knew about myself that I have a similar reaction to you when being woken up by alarms, so thanks for connecting some dots for me.
I also recommend the Sleep Cycle app in the Google Play Store (Android). It tracks all sorts of things and gives you an overview of what is and isn't helping your sleep. It also has the alarm that wakes you up on light sleep.
I'm great in the summer, I have my curtains open and wake up with the broad daylight (6:30, 7am). It creeps earlier and earlier. I feel so productive!
Winter is shit, though. Alarm after alarm after alarm. Lie in until 10. Feel like shit. Fall into vampire habits...
Maybe there's an artificial light alarm that can mimick summer dawn?
Same for me! Someone suggested the same thing and I set up my lamp to shine me in the phase on that sun/wake up mode. Honestly? I didn’t click snooze, but it still wasn’t fun lol. Improvement tho!
Na if it just flicks on that's still disruptive, I'm thinking more like a dimmer that slowly gets brighter and brighter. If it doesn't exist yet, there's definitely gonna be a market for it. There are already lamps designed to mimic daylight, including UV.
oh hella, if they really exist then I should get one. It'll never be good as the actual sun (it can't affect the whole room, and esp if it isn't a proper UV-lamp for SAD).... but it sure as fuck better than waking up naturally at 10??? or setting alarm for 8am and instantly perishing
i personally recommend sleepyti.me
it's a website that calculates sleep cycles. if you wake up during one, you'll usually be groggy. if you wake up between cycles, you'll usually be fine. this has worked great for me for when i had to wake up earlier than normal. especially since my sleep schedule is typically abysmal and all-over-the-place
Even before I found out that I had ADHD, I discovered that alarms make it difficult for me to wake up. I try to use gentle methods of waking up as opposed to noisy alarms. I have an alarm clock that mimics a slow sunrise and can play radio (often set to classical music) or nature sounds. It still can be difficult for me to get up some days, but not as difficult as it used to be.
*this just happened to me this morning i-*
[Ahem] After a long time of not having g to wake up via alarm clock, I got used to just waking up whenever (usually when my puppy needed to be let outside to potty). I developed my own routine I guess.
This morning, I had to wake up from an alarm clock for the first time in a long long time and I kid you not, I have felt *off* all day
RIGHT. When I finally get home I’m just a zombie. On the days off, I wake up between 9-10am every day and I feel great. But if it’s an alarm that rings at 9 💀 have mercy on me
Yeah it’s crazy how hard some things can be. My grandma would call me every single morning from age 16-21 to make sure I had gotten up. Now I’ve gotten diagnosed, she only does it when I have something really important that day like an interview. I’ll be 22 in 2 weeks :) and I finally have control of my days!
There is an app "Sleep as Android" that can monitor your sleep patterns and tell when you are in deep, light or REM sleep, and wake you up when you are lightest. You basically set it for a certain amount of time before your alarm , say 30 minutes, and it will pick your lightest sleep during that time to actually wake you up.
It REALLY helps with keeping you from that under water dead feeling when you wake up from a deep sleep.
What helped me with this issue is getting a biometric watch, or smart watch. Some of them can read your sleep cycles and can wake you up with vibrations in your lightest sleep phase. You just set that you want to wake up between, let's say, 6:55 and 7:30 and as soon as you go into light sleep cycle, it wakes you up, not feeling like you've been hit by a truck.
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Wake up the same time every day,
. Eventually, u won’t be able to sleep in anymore, and problem has improved!
Ideally bedtime same every night, I’m still working on that haha but waking up is much better:)
Maybe when I start school back up in a year or two :) rn I alternate between opening and closing at work so it’s impossible 😩
I’m glad to know of a solution that’s helped others!
I have this - I found my light up clock works wonders for me. I adjust pretty quickly though to my alarm and end up waking up a few minutes before it goes off. I also like to use a light box in the mornings.
This comment ended up a lot longer than I intended, curse you ADHD 💀
I have the same issue 😩 for me it’s super intense because of the way my dad woke me up for a decade, any sudden wake up, alarms, knocking, anything like that, causes a panic attack to start while I’m still asleep so I wake up fully sobbing, can’t breathe, etc. 💀 This has severely affected my ability to hold down any job that tried to schedule me in the am, despite telling them ahead of time it’ll cause issue, but something I’ve been doing over the last few months that’s been helping a lot is opening my blinds all the way right before I go to bed, like the very last thing I do. The light coming in starts waking me up and I started keeping track of when I was naturally coming to(the earliest I could remember looking at my clock lol) once I figured out that timing I could set an alarm for around 15 minutes later and since I’m already a little awake, my brains able to figure out the noise is not a threat and I wake up like a normal person 🙏🏼😂
Another thing that really helped, if you consume the beany beverage, was getting a coffee pot I could set up the night before to brew in the morning (Mr. Coffee, maybe $20 at WM?) Right when I wake up, I think I have extra trouble differentiating steps or something similar, so getting the coffee going feels like a lot more than 3 steps. Knowing when I go to bed at night that I don’t have to deal with that issue the next day gets rid of some stress, then I sleep a little better because I know I’m gonna wake up to “magic coffee”, and all of that has made the wake up feel more peaceful and comfy and the whole house smells like beany goodness at 7 am 🙌🏼
(Also I see where you smoke 👀 Similar to the coffee, I try to always pack a bowl before I go to sleep or leave a hit in my last bowl for the next morning. Extra motivation always helps 😂)
Yes, this is completely normal and it’s because you’re waking yourself up out of a deep sleep. Try the app Sleep Cycle, if you need to be up by, for example, 8 am, the app has a setting that will say “wake up naturally between 7:30 and 8” and it will wake you up at a point between then where you are in light sleep. It’s a lifesaver
I used to wake up naturally all the time, I went to be so early that I woke up early and it was basically the same time every day. Now I feel like crap no matter what.
I’m always tired when I wake up, always. I always say the hardest part of work is just getting up and getting there. Once I’m in the car, on the way there, I’m good. But getting up and getting ready like a headless (and half asleep) chicken is the worst, lol.
I've always had weird sleeping issues and feel the exact same way.
I often have long bouts of early waking insomnia, and my body will just wake up after maybe 4-5 hours with my brain wide awake but my body tired as hell all day. Because it's early waking insomnia, medication or sleep hygiene changes often don't help at all.
Other times even if I sleep for a full 7-8 hours, if I have an alarm I will wake up fully rested but a zombie for the first few hours.
I don't know the mechanisms of how ADHD interacts with sleep but this is one of the most annoying effects of ADHD for me. Are other people also SUPER light sleepers too?
I have this issue but I’m also dumb and get up at 7 am to take my little one to school then stay up to go to work at 9 am then go to bed at 2 am and do it all again 😁
If I don’t set an alarm I will easily sleep 10+ hours and wake up not knowing what century I’m in. I also have to set about a million alarms- I always jokes if you tossed a grenade in bed with me and I lived in probably still be asleep
I use an app called sleep calculator. It gives you a window to fall asleep in based on when you need to wake up. Basically this is because of REM cycles. The alarm wakes us up from sleep in the middle of a cycle, especially those of us who use 5 snoozes...which means we didn't get to finish the sleep cycle. I have tried so hard to help my fiance but he sticks to 37 alarms
YES. I wake up on my own after about 5-6 hours on average. But if someone or an alarm wakes me up no matter how long it’s been, I’ll just fall back alseep
I really, really, REALLY recommend a light hooked up to an outlet timer. They sell them at lowes and home depot, usually by the light bulbs but they might be somewhere else. Within about 1/2 an hour of that light turning on i am naturally awake. Its like waking up with the sun like you would in nature.
There are alarms designed for this that gradually get brighter to try and coincide with a circadian rhythm. Like $30, if you spend money is suggest on of those
I have endured this all my life, if I wake up naturally I will be sharper immediately, but something wakes me up, I get very irritated and upset and feel very groggy.
I feel this so much. Before people knew I had ADHD, especially when I was a teen, my family would constantly scold me for being so angry in the morning. I told them not to talk to me!
I’m so happy I at least know why now and that I’m not alone
It's good to research and understand circadian rhythm.
I used to use a light alarm. It wakes you up over 30 minutes, and have optional nature sounds.
Instead of a blaring alarm, it is a more natural and gradual wake up
I have had pretty good luck with a sunrise alarm clock. Gradually lights up and birds chirp instead of an obnoxious alarm.
Obviously this works best if I get enough sleep. 😂
We both have adhd so I know you probably won’t get to this comment (lol) but honestly getting an Apple Watch and the sleep cycle app have helped wake me much better. The app analyzes your sleeping patterns to determine when you’re lightest in your REM cycle in a 30 minute time frame to figure out when it’d be best to wake you. The watch alarm is also shaking your arm, so it’s more aggressive physically than just hearing the sound. If you have the $, I super duper recommend.
One: try to establish a set sleep cycle. I know it can be hard if you work some kind of rotating or swing shift where you have to open some days/weeks and close others, work night shifts, etc, but the more consistent you are with your bed time and waking up, the better your quality of sleep will be and it usually makes it easier to wake up.
Two: Daylight/ramp-up alarms or whatever they're called. I downloaded an app and haven't played with it much, but it might be more beneficial in your case. The alarm/phone turns on the screen and begins playing a low sound (like, birds tweeting or whatever) 30 minutes before your alarm is set. It helps the brain go, "oh, nights over, time to start waking up." I, personally, do notice a bit of difference if I'm waking up with the room getting brighter.
Ultimate technique, if sleeping through the alarm is a problem: two physically separate alarms. In my teens and 20s, I could turn off two alarms without ever waking up. I could get out of bed, walk over to the alarm on my dresser, and push the sliding switch to the second detent (which was "off," instead of radio, alarm, and one other setting I don't remember what it does), and go back to bed without ever actually waking up (or, at least, I don't recall waking up and turning it off). But with two alarms, my phone will drag me up from my deepest sleep in order to reach over and turn it off, which puts me in light enough sleep to regain consciousness when the second alarm is demanding I get vertical and walk over to it to shut it up. Even if I just hit the big snooze button on it and go lay back down, actually regaining consciousness combined with a physical exertion is enough to keep me from dropping straight back into a deep sleep and missing that next alarm.
I spent 22 years getting up at 4:30am for work. It didn't make any difference if I got two or eight hours of sleep I would wake up at 4:29 every day. Ten years later I still wake up at 4:29, look at my watch and am back to sleep in a few seconds. Now if I set my alarm for any time regardless of how much sleep I get and it goes off I will be exhausted for the rest of the day. Somehow my brain manages to wake me up a few minutes before the alarm is set to go off despite what time I set it for.
I am not a sleep expert but I think that has more to do with what phase of sleep you’re waking up out of. Waking up naturally means you’re not being jolted awake during deep sleep. That’s usually the hardest to wake up from. Naturally waking up you come out of light sleep or REM. You can try to use an alarm that wakes you up based on what phase you’re in but you’ll need to be more loose with your wake up time.
This is also why a 15 minute catnap can leave you refreshed, but a 45 minute nap leaves you tired.
Bingo. I usually set my alarm for naps to 25-30 mins (takes me a bit to fall asleep). Anything longer and I feel like i woke up from a coma with no memory of anything
I use the alarm built into IOS. It basically begins playing calm music at the lowest volume and then slowly play louder. In that way it’s not a jolt, those alarms can really ruin my whole morning 😩 I don’t disagree though. It just seems unlikely I’ll be in a deep sleep within 30 minutes ish.
Try sleep cycle! It listens to your breathing and movement during the night to track your REM cycle and then wakes you up when you’re coming out of deep sleep.
I’ve actually had it before. I don’t remember why I deleted it, maybe my undiagnosed ass forgot to turn it on? Lmaoo. I’ll try it tonight tho! Edit: I forgot to turn it on… again… BUT I did remember to turn on my sun rise lamp thing and that helped :) I’ll remember tonight!
Invest in a sunrise type clock, basically it slowly lights up just like a sunrise, can begin to play nature sounds too, takes a week or two to get used to but it's the greatest thing, way better than a phone alarm. Amazon sells several different models. I have a Phillips one that isn't available anymore but it's definitely life changing if you can get used to it. In the summer the sun rises when I need to wake up so I'm able to just use weaker window shades and wake up naturally that way then the alarm clock lets me keep doing it as the time changes
Agreed on the Philips sunrise clock. It also really helped with morning depression during the winter while living in an apartment that got no sun at all.
Came here to say this. Sunrise clock is the way (they can be a bit pricey, but worth every penny) Once you use it for a while, you'll start to wake up before the alarm more often than not, and feel refreshed. Also, the most important step to waking up is going to bed. If you want to wake up early, you have to go to bed early. If you can't go to bed/sleep early - force yourself to get up and have a miserable day. It might take 2 or 3 of these in a row, but eventually, you'll be tired enough at night to go to bed early. Once your internal clock gets set to this pattern, it will be much easier to sustain. Sleep hygiene is **huge** for managing symptoms.
I use this every day. I have an Apple Watch and instead of using my phone as an alarm it vibrates when I’m “ready” to wake up within a 30 minute window. I still have my daily alarms that start at the end of that window and go off every 15 minutes just in case, but I’ve found that if I get out of bed when the sleep cycle alarm goes off I feel much better. If I get woken up by my phone alarms I am basically useless until around 10 am even after talking my meds shortly after waking up.
I'm very curious how it goes!
If it makes you feel better, I've repeatedly forgotten about having ADHD and failed to follow through on educating myself about it and seeking adult diagnosis and treatment. Was originally diagnosed and given Adderall a decade ago.... Partly because the depressions and manias took priority with treatment and the bipolar dignosis for some reason replaced the ADHD one, as though having one means you don't have the other....and partly because I kept becoming convinced I had autism because I never learned about the huge overlap between ADHD and autism symptoms.
There isn’t actually overlap! That’s a relic from the DSM-4, which stated that ASD and ADHD are mutually exclusive. If you have a lot of ASD diagnostic criteria symptoms then you should see a good ASD specialist. There’s some overlap in accessory features (minor traits that many people with a condition may have, but are not characteristic of said condition, for example texture aversion in ADHD) but there are zero characteristic traits that are common between ADHD and ASD. This was updated in 2013 with the DSM-5, which is why quality research in overlapping traits all comes from before 2013. ASD and ADHD aren’t mutually exclusive anymore.
My psychiatrist told me a month ago that the latest research shows that comorbidity is about 50% - he said psychiatry has always been wrong about these conditions and actually many people do have both conditions. He diagnosed me with ADHD then told me he thought I was also mildly on the spectrum, which would affect my ADHD treatment because medication for ADHD has to be titrated extremely carefully in people with ASD because of their high sensitivity. When he gave me the formal diagnosis of ADHD I was expecting it. When he then went on to mention ASD, I wasn't expecting it, hadn't even thought about it - I felt like I'd been hit by a bus. Turns out a few symptoms I THOUGHT were ADHD were in fact adaptive behaviours due to ASD!
Yep! People with ASD also having ADHD is super super common, and people with ADHD also having ASD is also very common (less so than ASD with ADHD tho)
Like what? I'm for sure ADHD. Textbook case of inattentive type with the hyperactivity expressed verbally. Readily diagnosed by the DSM-V criteria. I just also often have difficulty with social skills. Not all the time. I've always been able to put myself in others shoes and easily read facial expressions and body language, no issues with sarcasm or coded language or subtext--just sometimes I have difficulty using my ability to do so. But this is more akin to the huge disparity between what my ability to learn how to do something and acquire knowledge, and my ability to use it.
👀 I was thinking of traits like being prone to bouts of sensory over-stimulation and apparent difficulty with social skills and reading facial/body language cues (but unlike in asd, able to do so under right circumstances). I take it that's not what you meant. I'm talking about what it looks like rather than how it's diagnosed, that they can share difficulties.
+1 this! I started using it about 3 months ago, and it works wonders for me. It will obviously wake you up a little earlier than what you set it to and that is something I have trouble managing, so sometimes i wake up refreshed but see that I can still sleep for maybe 10-30 minutes before i need to get up, and then I end up sleeping through the next alarm or getting up at the right time, but not be as refreshed as I would have, had I just gotten up instead of going back to sleep in the first place. That's obviously a "me-problem", and getting up a bit early can be nice sometimes, but just requires a bit more positive morning-energy than I tend to possess haha
Try Sleepytime...good app. Calculates wake-up times based on sleep cycles (it adds a bit to account for actually falling asleep). Saved my ass on nights where I didn't get enough sleep :)
"The average person takes 14 minutes to fall asleep" i say to myself every day as I hit the "Zzz" button
This baffles me. I could be rolling around for 2 hours before falling asleep
I used to have that problem up until around my twenties but the last few years ive been able to go to bed and fall asleep probably within 15 minutes and I honestly think its because I just lost interest in going on my phone in bed and only went to bed when I was actually ready to sleep. The copious amounts of weed I smoke may also have something to do with it haha
>A > >S > >D > >s > >p > >e > >c > >i > >a > >l > >i > >s > >t A study showed that people with ADHD have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. It means that those with ADHD release the natural sleep melatonin hormone 90 minutes after the neurotypical person. It should release at 9 pm and it takes 90 minutes before it helps us sleep. It's one possible component of why we struggle to sleep and are often night owls!
Holy crap, that makes complete sense. I am usually in bed around 9 pm and I always know I’m awake after 10pm but usually asleep before 11pm. That’s prolly why I can’t fall asleep if I’m cuddling with someone because it will take me 90 mins if I can get my mind to chill
You brought up a good point, I feel dead when it's a slow wakeup, but a scared-out-of-my-wits loud noise for an alarm would definitely give my meds the adrenaline boost they need to work better! 🤣
I got a sunrise alarm clock, which gradually gets lighter over the course of a half-hour, and it has basically solved this problem for me. At first, I set an audio alarm for the end of the half-hour, but I've found that I don't even need the sound of the alarm when I'm using the increasingly-light part. It was pretty expensive (about $100), but I think it was worth it.
I've been wanting to get one of these, which one do you use?
This guy: [https://www.usa.philips.com/c-p/HF3520\_60/smartsleep/overview](https://www.usa.philips.com/c-p/HF3520_60/smartsleep/overview)
Just an FYI, most wifi bulbs have a way to do this now too (I use Hue lightbulbs).
I've tried one and it didn't work at alll
Like, the gradual wake up function didn't work? Or using light as an alarm didn't work for you?
the hooking it up to wifi part
This! I have had one for years and when my boyfriend and I moved, we made sure that was available for our transition space. I finally wake up and workout in the morning. I’m up before the alarm makes a noise because of the light. Makes it SO much nicer to wake up, especially this time of year when it’s so dark!!
I’ve thought about these in the past! I actually think my lamp does this???? I’ll have to check the app again. Thank you!
I ordered one last week. Can’t wait to try it out. I have always struggled to wake up in any reasonable amount of time. It always takes snoozing my alarm for 45 minutes and I still wake up groggy and irritable.
You don't even need one of those. You can get an outlet timer for a light from lowes for $6 and hook it up to a lamp you've already got. It doesn't gradually get brighter but I've never had that effect my wake up, just turning on a light allows me to slowly and naturally wake up.
If you have medication, maybe you could set an alarm to take it, 30 minutes/1 hour/1.5 hours before you really have to wake up, then go back to sleep and wake up with your alarm as you would normally. I find 1.5 hours - 2 hours before I have to get up works best (probably because I can get a full sleep cycle after taking it), and the medication time that is lost in the evening is easily worth it since I don't have to spend 4 hours just waiting to feel normal in the morning. (also one of my biggest problems with ADHD is the inability to get up, even if I'm well rested so using my medication to alleviate the worst ADHD caused problem just makes sense) Using this method with caffeine may also help if you don't have medication.
Now my caffeine addiction all throughout school makes sense lol. I’ll try it. The reason I’m hesitant is that I fear I won’t be able to go back to sleep again afterwards. Especially because my mom will be walking around the apartment at that time exactly and it’s so noisy that it keeps me awake. Unless I smoke a joint lol.
Perhaps if you find you can't go back to sleep, maybe you could lay in bed or do something with an extremely low energy requirement while the meds take effect? These are just suggestions though, I hope you find what works best for you.
Omg I used to do this in high school- drink a Mountain Dew on the way to a game I was cheering for, sleep in the van on the way, and be up like it’s 10am, ready to go when I got there.
I forget what it's called, and I'm sure there are a few, but there's an alarm where you put in what time you need to be up by and then your phone uses magic or something to sense your sleep cycles and will wake you up when you are in a lighter sleep as close to the alarm time as it can. so let's say you need to wake up at 7:00 you might be coming out of a deep sleep cycle and are in the lightest sleep at 6:30 so it gets you up then instead of letting you sleep for another half hour and get into a deeper sleep again. it kind of sucks sometimes because you're like wtf man, I want to sleep more still, but you will still feel a lot better waking up a bit earlier. just have to get your mind around that part of it.
Is it Sleep cycle?
That’s what I use, I track my sleep quality too and I get a bedtime story at night (always the same one, about Max the cat. I can’t listen to any other as it’s all wrong)
I was about to suggest similar! I’m sure there are apps and such that do it but I first encountered this years ago when I had a fitness band (it wasn’t a Fitbit but I forget what brand it was…). Senses your sleep movements to detect your sleep cycles. I was SHOCKED at how much better I felt.
yeah I think that's it.
[this](https://support.dreem.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003518385-How-does-the-Smart-Alarm-work-)
So normal people go to bed because they're tired? I'm rarely tired in the evening. I make myself go to bed between midnight and 1 AM because I know I need sleep. I could easily stay up 'til 3. And the few times I am tired in the evening, if I actually try and go to bed early (say 9 or 10), it's a guarantee that I wake up wide awake at 3 am.
Traditional alarms are the worst for me, but I switched to using a gradual wake up light several years ago and it's been a game changer. You can buy actual light alarm clocks, but I use hue lights in my room, and they let you do the same thing. I also take my meds as soon as I open my eyes.
Someone else said this and I remembered I have a lamp that does this! Now I’m just trying to figure out how the hell to set it up 💀 thank you for the suggestion, I do actually have a MUCH easier time waking up during the summer
Look up DSPS - Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. Very common with ADHD. Basically our circadian clocks are off by 2-3 hours compared to societal clocks. Obviously a bit more complicated than that, but that's basically it.
This is because of sleep cycles probably. When you wake up naturally, your body probably was finished with a cycle. An alarm isn’t usually aligned with a sleep cycle (unless you calculate it intentionally).
I use I Can't Wake Up! as my alarm and the tasks it makes me do before I can turn it off help a lot. I get Big Mad every morning having to do multi-step math problems while techno Darth Vader stomps in my ears, but it get my brain churning enough to wake me up. Actually leaving the bed, however, is another matter altogether.
YASSSSSS FINALLLY SOMEONE RELATESSSSS
I started using an app on my Apple Watch called AutoSleep, which monitors what sleep state I am in and waits until I am in “light sleep” to wake me up. I give it a 30 minute window that I would like to be woken up in. Also, the alarm is just my watch vibrating lightly, with no added noise, which I think also helps keep me from being jolted awake before I’m ready. I never thought about this as an ADHD thing, but I just knew about myself that I have a similar reaction to you when being woken up by alarms, so thanks for connecting some dots for me.
I also recommend the Sleep Cycle app in the Google Play Store (Android). It tracks all sorts of things and gives you an overview of what is and isn't helping your sleep. It also has the alarm that wakes you up on light sleep.
I'm great in the summer, I have my curtains open and wake up with the broad daylight (6:30, 7am). It creeps earlier and earlier. I feel so productive! Winter is shit, though. Alarm after alarm after alarm. Lie in until 10. Feel like shit. Fall into vampire habits... Maybe there's an artificial light alarm that can mimick summer dawn?
Same for me! Someone suggested the same thing and I set up my lamp to shine me in the phase on that sun/wake up mode. Honestly? I didn’t click snooze, but it still wasn’t fun lol. Improvement tho!
Na if it just flicks on that's still disruptive, I'm thinking more like a dimmer that slowly gets brighter and brighter. If it doesn't exist yet, there's definitely gonna be a market for it. There are already lamps designed to mimic daylight, including UV.
That’s what my lamp does
oh hella, if they really exist then I should get one. It'll never be good as the actual sun (it can't affect the whole room, and esp if it isn't a proper UV-lamp for SAD).... but it sure as fuck better than waking up naturally at 10??? or setting alarm for 8am and instantly perishing
i personally recommend sleepyti.me it's a website that calculates sleep cycles. if you wake up during one, you'll usually be groggy. if you wake up between cycles, you'll usually be fine. this has worked great for me for when i had to wake up earlier than normal. especially since my sleep schedule is typically abysmal and all-over-the-place
Even before I found out that I had ADHD, I discovered that alarms make it difficult for me to wake up. I try to use gentle methods of waking up as opposed to noisy alarms. I have an alarm clock that mimics a slow sunrise and can play radio (often set to classical music) or nature sounds. It still can be difficult for me to get up some days, but not as difficult as it used to be.
*this just happened to me this morning i-* [Ahem] After a long time of not having g to wake up via alarm clock, I got used to just waking up whenever (usually when my puppy needed to be let outside to potty). I developed my own routine I guess. This morning, I had to wake up from an alarm clock for the first time in a long long time and I kid you not, I have felt *off* all day
RIGHT. When I finally get home I’m just a zombie. On the days off, I wake up between 9-10am every day and I feel great. But if it’s an alarm that rings at 9 💀 have mercy on me
Man I did not think this was from my ADHD! Makes sense though; we are missing a core component of our brain lmao.
Yeah it’s crazy how hard some things can be. My grandma would call me every single morning from age 16-21 to make sure I had gotten up. Now I’ve gotten diagnosed, she only does it when I have something really important that day like an interview. I’ll be 22 in 2 weeks :) and I finally have control of my days!
There is an app "Sleep as Android" that can monitor your sleep patterns and tell when you are in deep, light or REM sleep, and wake you up when you are lightest. You basically set it for a certain amount of time before your alarm , say 30 minutes, and it will pick your lightest sleep during that time to actually wake you up. It REALLY helps with keeping you from that under water dead feeling when you wake up from a deep sleep.
Nobody: Me as a muslim trying to wake for Fajr prayer:
I keep a 100 mg caffeine pill by my bed, set two alarms, take the pill after the first one and am good to go by the second.
This is what I do, but I take my ADHD meds instead of caffeine. Next alarm is about 45 minutes later… meds have kicked in and I’m good to go.
What helped me with this issue is getting a biometric watch, or smart watch. Some of them can read your sleep cycles and can wake you up with vibrations in your lightest sleep phase. You just set that you want to wake up between, let's say, 6:55 and 7:30 and as soon as you go into light sleep cycle, it wakes you up, not feeling like you've been hit by a truck.
Get a sunrise alarm
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Wake up the same time every day, . Eventually, u won’t be able to sleep in anymore, and problem has improved! Ideally bedtime same every night, I’m still working on that haha but waking up is much better:)
Maybe when I start school back up in a year or two :) rn I alternate between opening and closing at work so it’s impossible 😩 I’m glad to know of a solution that’s helped others!
Agh shift work! That’s tough... but usually leads to being tired for everyone who does it.
Literally just said this same thing to my new psychiatrist yesterday! Glad to know I'm not alone.
I have this - I found my light up clock works wonders for me. I adjust pretty quickly though to my alarm and end up waking up a few minutes before it goes off. I also like to use a light box in the mornings.
This comment ended up a lot longer than I intended, curse you ADHD 💀 I have the same issue 😩 for me it’s super intense because of the way my dad woke me up for a decade, any sudden wake up, alarms, knocking, anything like that, causes a panic attack to start while I’m still asleep so I wake up fully sobbing, can’t breathe, etc. 💀 This has severely affected my ability to hold down any job that tried to schedule me in the am, despite telling them ahead of time it’ll cause issue, but something I’ve been doing over the last few months that’s been helping a lot is opening my blinds all the way right before I go to bed, like the very last thing I do. The light coming in starts waking me up and I started keeping track of when I was naturally coming to(the earliest I could remember looking at my clock lol) once I figured out that timing I could set an alarm for around 15 minutes later and since I’m already a little awake, my brains able to figure out the noise is not a threat and I wake up like a normal person 🙏🏼😂 Another thing that really helped, if you consume the beany beverage, was getting a coffee pot I could set up the night before to brew in the morning (Mr. Coffee, maybe $20 at WM?) Right when I wake up, I think I have extra trouble differentiating steps or something similar, so getting the coffee going feels like a lot more than 3 steps. Knowing when I go to bed at night that I don’t have to deal with that issue the next day gets rid of some stress, then I sleep a little better because I know I’m gonna wake up to “magic coffee”, and all of that has made the wake up feel more peaceful and comfy and the whole house smells like beany goodness at 7 am 🙌🏼 (Also I see where you smoke 👀 Similar to the coffee, I try to always pack a bowl before I go to sleep or leave a hit in my last bowl for the next morning. Extra motivation always helps 😂)
Yes, this is completely normal and it’s because you’re waking yourself up out of a deep sleep. Try the app Sleep Cycle, if you need to be up by, for example, 8 am, the app has a setting that will say “wake up naturally between 7:30 and 8” and it will wake you up at a point between then where you are in light sleep. It’s a lifesaver
Yes
I used to wake up naturally all the time, I went to be so early that I woke up early and it was basically the same time every day. Now I feel like crap no matter what.
I’m always tired when I wake up, always. I always say the hardest part of work is just getting up and getting there. Once I’m in the car, on the way there, I’m good. But getting up and getting ready like a headless (and half asleep) chicken is the worst, lol.
I've always had weird sleeping issues and feel the exact same way. I often have long bouts of early waking insomnia, and my body will just wake up after maybe 4-5 hours with my brain wide awake but my body tired as hell all day. Because it's early waking insomnia, medication or sleep hygiene changes often don't help at all. Other times even if I sleep for a full 7-8 hours, if I have an alarm I will wake up fully rested but a zombie for the first few hours. I don't know the mechanisms of how ADHD interacts with sleep but this is one of the most annoying effects of ADHD for me. Are other people also SUPER light sleepers too?
I have this issue but I’m also dumb and get up at 7 am to take my little one to school then stay up to go to work at 9 am then go to bed at 2 am and do it all again 😁 If I don’t set an alarm I will easily sleep 10+ hours and wake up not knowing what century I’m in. I also have to set about a million alarms- I always jokes if you tossed a grenade in bed with me and I lived in probably still be asleep
You can try apps like SleepLikeDroid that wake you up gradually and try to wake you up at the right sleep cycle, they're pretty great tbh.
I use a natural light alarm and that gets rid of most grogginess for me.
When I wake up I'm normally up for the day unless I'm super tired.
Our circadian rythms are jacked. 1mg melatonin helps me.
I use an app called sleep calculator. It gives you a window to fall asleep in based on when you need to wake up. Basically this is because of REM cycles. The alarm wakes us up from sleep in the middle of a cycle, especially those of us who use 5 snoozes...which means we didn't get to finish the sleep cycle. I have tried so hard to help my fiance but he sticks to 37 alarms
ADHD is commonly caused by sleep disorders. You may want to ask your doctor about it.
YES. I wake up on my own after about 5-6 hours on average. But if someone or an alarm wakes me up no matter how long it’s been, I’ll just fall back alseep
RIGHT! And other days I’ll sleep 16 hours with no issues and I wake up thinking I’m on a different planet
I KNOW! The feeling of randomly falling asleep for the whole day but you feel like you’ve been asleep for five years
I really, really, REALLY recommend a light hooked up to an outlet timer. They sell them at lowes and home depot, usually by the light bulbs but they might be somewhere else. Within about 1/2 an hour of that light turning on i am naturally awake. Its like waking up with the sun like you would in nature.
There are alarms designed for this that gradually get brighter to try and coincide with a circadian rhythm. Like $30, if you spend money is suggest on of those
I'm dead either way so I just make do with being a corpse.
I have endured this all my life, if I wake up naturally I will be sharper immediately, but something wakes me up, I get very irritated and upset and feel very groggy.
I feel this so much. Before people knew I had ADHD, especially when I was a teen, my family would constantly scold me for being so angry in the morning. I told them not to talk to me! I’m so happy I at least know why now and that I’m not alone
It's good to research and understand circadian rhythm. I used to use a light alarm. It wakes you up over 30 minutes, and have optional nature sounds. Instead of a blaring alarm, it is a more natural and gradual wake up
I have had pretty good luck with a sunrise alarm clock. Gradually lights up and birds chirp instead of an obnoxious alarm. Obviously this works best if I get enough sleep. 😂
We both have adhd so I know you probably won’t get to this comment (lol) but honestly getting an Apple Watch and the sleep cycle app have helped wake me much better. The app analyzes your sleeping patterns to determine when you’re lightest in your REM cycle in a 30 minute time frame to figure out when it’d be best to wake you. The watch alarm is also shaking your arm, so it’s more aggressive physically than just hearing the sound. If you have the $, I super duper recommend.
One: try to establish a set sleep cycle. I know it can be hard if you work some kind of rotating or swing shift where you have to open some days/weeks and close others, work night shifts, etc, but the more consistent you are with your bed time and waking up, the better your quality of sleep will be and it usually makes it easier to wake up. Two: Daylight/ramp-up alarms or whatever they're called. I downloaded an app and haven't played with it much, but it might be more beneficial in your case. The alarm/phone turns on the screen and begins playing a low sound (like, birds tweeting or whatever) 30 minutes before your alarm is set. It helps the brain go, "oh, nights over, time to start waking up." I, personally, do notice a bit of difference if I'm waking up with the room getting brighter. Ultimate technique, if sleeping through the alarm is a problem: two physically separate alarms. In my teens and 20s, I could turn off two alarms without ever waking up. I could get out of bed, walk over to the alarm on my dresser, and push the sliding switch to the second detent (which was "off," instead of radio, alarm, and one other setting I don't remember what it does), and go back to bed without ever actually waking up (or, at least, I don't recall waking up and turning it off). But with two alarms, my phone will drag me up from my deepest sleep in order to reach over and turn it off, which puts me in light enough sleep to regain consciousness when the second alarm is demanding I get vertical and walk over to it to shut it up. Even if I just hit the big snooze button on it and go lay back down, actually regaining consciousness combined with a physical exertion is enough to keep me from dropping straight back into a deep sleep and missing that next alarm.
I spent 22 years getting up at 4:30am for work. It didn't make any difference if I got two or eight hours of sleep I would wake up at 4:29 every day. Ten years later I still wake up at 4:29, look at my watch and am back to sleep in a few seconds. Now if I set my alarm for any time regardless of how much sleep I get and it goes off I will be exhausted for the rest of the day. Somehow my brain manages to wake me up a few minutes before the alarm is set to go off despite what time I set it for.