Sleep and ADHD: Breaking the All-or-Nothing Trap

Are you tired of feeling like your sleep is always off, no matter what new hack you try? Do you ever wonder if your ADHD brain is making it worse—or if it is even possible to “catch up” and get back on track after a rough week?

If restless nights and chaotic mornings are your norm, you are not alone. Let’s talk about why ADHD Entrepreneurs struggle with sleep, how it ties directly into our moods and productivity, and—most importantly—what small, real changes work.

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Why Is Sleep Such a Struggle With ADHD?

Ever noticed how most ADHD Entrepreneurs you meet will say their sleep's a disaster? Marlee Boyle, a respiratory therapist and clinical sleep health coach from Nova Scotia, didn’t mince words: “There’s a very high correlation…rates of 50 to 80% of people with ADHD that also have co-occurring sleep problems.” If you have wrestled with bad sleep for ages, that puts you right in the majority.

Here is what I understood: losing sleep doesn’t just give us dark circles and fuzzy brains. For ADHD brains, it exaggerates the worst parts—poor working memory, sloppy planning, exaggerated emotions, even more time blindness. As Marlee put it, “Those effects are actually amplified.”

Sleep Debt: Why the Weekend Crash Will Not Save You

Raise your hand if you have crammed five-day weeks with four hours of sleep, convincing yourself those weekend crash-naps fix everything. As Admiral Ackbar said ”It is a trap!” Marlee called this the “weekday warrior” cycle. You stack up a sleep debt all week—but there is no way your brain and body can recover 10 hours of lost sleep in a marathon weekend snooze. Marlee was direct: real “catch up” only happens after a night or two of less sleep, not weeks of lost rest.

If that cycle sounds familiar, you have likely also noticed your productivity nose-dives and emotions swing all over the place right before you finally crash.

What’s Messing With Our Sleep?

Sleep issues are not just about not trying hard enough. The main culprits for people with ADHD? Screens and artificial light—even more than sleep disorders like insomnia or sleep apnea. Our brains read blue light as sunlight, even if it is from a phone at 11 PM, so we delay releasing melatonin (our “sleep hormone”) and push back the good, deep sleep our brains need to recover.

It is not just what is in our hands. Even just being indoors throws off our sleep-wake cycle because we do not get enough natural light.

Another enemy: our own racing thoughts. You know those nights when your brain’s firing on all cylinders, replaying the day or planning tomorrow while you are staring at the ceiling? My observation is: “People stop telling me to relax, I can't physically, I can’t! So I'm searching for calm. How can I calm myself before bed to slow my brain down so I can get to sleep?”

Building a Sleep Routine—Forget Perfection, Start Small

Here is the truth: most of us overthink sleep routines. If we can’t hit every step, we just throw it all out and binge Netflix instead. That all-or-nothing mindset ruins us. Marlee flipped that script: “It’s not all or nothing. Even if you practice part of that bedtime routine… it is worthwhile.”

Start tiny. Maybe tonight you put on blue-light glasses after 8 PM. Or you test a body-based relaxation technique like progressive muscle relaxation (Marlee says these are especially helpful for ADHDers—think about relaxing your toes, then your feet, then your shins, and so on). Even an extra 15 minutes of quality sleep makes a difference.

Easy wins? Try tunable lighting—those Wi-Fi light bulbs that shift to amber tones at night and mimic sunrise in the morning. Set them and forget them. Less decision fatigue, more natural cues for your ADHD brain.

Fast Actions For Tonight

• Skip the sleep guilt. Pick one bedtime habit—reading, blue-light glasses, a body scan, whatever—and do it, even if it is not perfect.

• Turn down your lights or try a tunable bulb to help your brain wind down.

• Practice relaxing before bed, not just when you are desperate to crash.

• Notice how sleep or lack of it shows up in your mood and focus the next day. Reflect, don’t judge.

Let’s Keep the Conversation Going

ADHD, mood, and sleep quality are all tangled up. But you’re not doomed to an endless cycle of crash and burn. Try one small shift tonight, see how it lands. Share your wins or struggles in the comments; you’re part of a community that gets it.

Want to go deeper? Check out the Venn diagram Marlee shared (link in show notes). We’re in this together—one better night at a time.