What to do after a sleepless night

A drug free ADHD approach to keeping it together after a poor night of sleep

I slept awful last night — two hours total. 

I would blame ADHD, but that had nothing to do with me waking up at 1am. That was my son’s doing. 

Having ADHD makes it hard to get back to sleep after waking up. But it’s not impossible. 

A few things that have worked for me:

• Repeating a mantra (word or sound) mentally

• Taking very slow and deep breaths through my nose

• Taking deep breaths and then holding my breath for 15 to 20 seconds, before releasing

These all relax my mind. And crucially, distract my attention away from the busy mind.

But last night was different. No matter what I did - mantra, breathing, counting sheep - the disruption of my son climbing on and off my back every few minutes meant I didn’t sleep at all. 

I was exhausted this morning. 

But I managed to get in a (mostly) full day of work. 

Here’s how I did it:

1. Took a cold shower

2. Went for a walk

3. Let go of any attachment to the idea that being tired was causing me problems

4. Used Breathwork to boost my energy 

5. Went easy on myself 

I’m writing this at 4pm. 

This morning, I was certain today would be a write off. 

But these techniques saved me. 

It could have gone one of two ways. 

1. Feel sorry for myself

2. Do something about it

I was drifting towards option one until I got in the cold shower. 

That kick started my motivation to get out of the house, which improved my mood quickly. 

Every time my mind would complain about me being tired, I noticed it, then relaxed my entire body to let go of my attachment — after all, they are only thoughts and thoughts do not have to be listened to. 

Later in the day, as I noticed my energy drop I did some Breathwork to bring it back up again. 

And I kept my todo list short and simple. And accepted that not everything would get done. 

The moral: it’s extremely easy to get tricked into feeling sorry for ourselves when things don’t go our way — like not get enough sleep. 

We can blame all sorts of things, including ADHD. But when we really closely pay attention, we notice that blaming achieves nothing valuable. 

Instead, if we can muster the strength to do something about how we feel, nine times out of ten we’ll feel better. We’ll gain the confidence that we’re in charge, not our ADHD. Then next time something like this happens it’ll be easier to sort ourselves out.