ADHD and Sleep
Let’s talk about one of the most maddening and misunderstood aspects of ADHD: sleep. If you’ve ever laid awake at 3am with a brain that’s staging a Broadway musical while your body begs for unconsciousness, you’re not alone.​ The relationship between ADHD and sleep is deeply rooted in neurobiology. This isn’t just about “bad habits” or “not trying hard enough.” It’s about what’s happening under the hood—at the level of circadian rhythms, neurotransmitters, and neural regulation. Here’s the science.
Let’s Work Together
In therapy, we approach ADHD-related sleep challenges with compassion, curiosity, and a deep respect for how your nervous system actually works—not how it “should” work. Instead of focusing on rigid sleep routines or shaming sleep hygiene, we explore the underlying reasons your body and mind resist rest. This might involve somatic practices to help your nervous system down-regulate, Internal Family Systems (IFS) work to understand the parts of you that feel anxious, activated, or defiant at night, and gentle experiments with rhythmic cues (not strict schedules) to support transitions into rest. We reframe sleep not as a task to master, but as a relationship to rebuild—especially if your body has learned that nighttime isn’t safe or stillness feels threatening. Where needed, we collaborate with prescribers or sleep specialists, but the core of the work is this: supporting you in learning how to soften, listen, and re-pattern your relationship to rest from the inside out.
