ADHD and Autism Bedtime Routine: Advice for Neurodivergent Adults
Are you an Autistic or ADHD adult looking for help developing a sleep routine? Maybe you’re having difficulty finding advice for your neurotype and need help getting better sleep at night? As a neurodivergent person myself and a clinician who works with neurodivergent adults, I understand this struggle. Since I was a child, I have struggled with sleep issues. For a long time, I didn’t understand that my sleep issues were linked to my neurotype. After learning about my Autism and ADHD and how they are linked to sleep problems, I began gathering sleep tools for myself and my clients.
Sleep routine is a major tool used by Autistic and ADHD people. As I’ll explain in this article, there are a few major reasons why I recommend developing a sleep routine for neurodivergent adults. In this article, I will go over the basics of sleep routines for Autism and ADHD, why they’re helpful, how to tailor your sleep routine to you, and some suggestions for things to add to your routine.
If you are interested in the connections between Autism, ADHD, and sleep issues, you should check out my article on neurodivergent sleep. In the article, I go into more detail about these connections as well as even more resources to help you get better sleep at night.
If you find this article helpful or you want more help with your sleep patterns, then you should check out my neurodivergent sleep workbook. This workbook is designed to give you everything you need to know to help your sleep cycle, including loads of workbook pages, exercises, and resources. Get the Neurodivergent Sleep Guide here.
Disclaimer: this article is for educational purposes only! Sleep issues can be due to underlying medical conditions. If you are experiencing chronic sleep issues, such as chronic insomnia or snoring, then I recommend talking with a healthcare professional about ruling out these medical conditions.
Why is an ADHD and Autism Bedtime Routine Important?
Our brains and bodies are constantly responding to signals and stimuli to know when it’s time to sleep. These cues can be internal (such as our hormones) and external (for example, putting on our pajamas). Because neurodivergent people tend to have a delayed onset of melatonin (the sleep hormone) and poor interoception, our brains often need a lot of external cues to know when it’s time for bed.
Having a consistent bedtime routine is one way we can send those sleep signals to the brain and body. When we practice a relaxing routine nightly, this primes our brains and bodies for sleep, moving us from a state of wakefulness to a state of sleepiness, and even helps promote melatonin secretion. Plus, a regular bedtime routine strengthens our circadian rhythms.
How to Build a Bedtime Routine for ADHD and Autism
Building a sustainable sleep routine usually isn’t as easy as deciding to make the changes. Our neurodivergent brains and bodies can be stubborn! So here are a few tips to consider when creating your bedtime routine:
Aim for consistency
It takes roughly 28 days for your brain to adopt a new routine. Therefore, trying new practices for only a few nights or a week isn’t going to get your brain and body into that new rhythm. Plus, not every new practice in your nightly routine is going to feel calming and grounding to you (everybody is different!), and it may take time to figure that out. Also, consistency is an important ingredient to get the brain and body relaxed at night. Changes can be stressful on the body, so if you are changing your routines often, that could be a contributing factor to your poor sleep. Therefore, creating a routine and sticking to it (as long as it feels good to you) is just as important as the nightly actions themselves.
Go slow, adding new practices over time
It’s also important to make gradual changes. Similar to what I said above, too much change too quickly can be stressful for the body, achieving the opposite effect we want to achieve. If you have ADHD, this can be especially difficult for you. ADHDers tend to want to make all of the changes all at once! And then we tend to burnout fast! Although making drastic changes can work for you in other areas of your life, it’s probably not going to work for you here. Therefore, it’s important to try to take it one change at a time. I suggest making one change, sticking to it for the 28-day time frame, then, once the practice is incorporated, add or change the next thing.
Choose activities that feel good to YOU
Every person is different and finds different things relaxing. The suggestions listed in this article (and the suggestions from all other sources, including medical professionals) may or may not be a good fit for you. You are the most important person to listen to when you’re developing a nightly routine, so be sure to trust yourself. As neurodivergent people, it’s easy to take other people’s advice literally and as an ultimatum. It can also be difficult to listen to the signals your brain and body are sending you if you struggle with interoception. If this is the case for you, I recommend starting with some interoception exercises. Not only will this help you understand what bedtime activities calm you and which activate you, but it will help you better understand the possible underlying causes of your sleep issues. It’s easy to overlook things like sensory sensitivities that are keeping you awake at night!
Ideas to Include in your ADHD and Autism Bedtime Routine
Here is a quick list of recommendations for things to include in your nightly routine. Not everything here will likely work for you, and not every possibility is on this list, so be sure to consider your own wants and needs when trying out these suggestions!
Take a warm bath or shower
Not only is taking a shower or bath at night a great way to ensure good hygiene (as neurodivergent people, it’s easy for us to forget to take care of our bodies!), but it’s perfect for transitioning from daytime mode to nighttime mode. Showering is a great symbol for washing away the day. You step in with all the grime you’ve collected from the day, wash it off, clear the mind of the clutter you’ve accumulated, get out, and climb into your pajamas feeling fresh and clean. Plus, the warm temperature of the shower helps the body relax.
Have a Self-Care Routine that you Love
What self-care actions make you feel grounded and comfortable in your skin? Would it feel good to you to develop a skincare routine? Maybe you love putting on lotion after the shower? If there are things you know make your body feel calm, try adding them into your nightly routine consistently. And if you don’t have any self-care actions you know you love or don’t know what you like, maybe try experimenting with different things until you find a groove you can slide into nightly.
Use your Favorite Essential Oils
Essential oils are a great way to help the mind and body relax. The scents quickly activate the parts of the brain responsible for joy and relaxation. Plus, when we use essential oils consistently as we are going to bed, our brains associate the smell with sleep, which, after a couple of weeks, helps trigger sleep when we use that essential oil. Some of my favorite essential oils to use before bed include lavender and eucalyptus.
Drink Herbal Tea
When we drink warm herbal teas, especially herbal tea with relaxation properties, it’s a great way to let the body and mind know it’s ok to relax. Some examples of herbs that are great to drink before bed include chamomile, mint, passion flower, skull cap, tulsi, lemon balm, ginger, lavender, and oat straw. Really any warm drink will help as long as it doesn’t have caffeine in it.
Read a Book
Reading before bed, especially books that are easy to read with an engaging storyline, is a great way to relax the mind and body. This can also be a good way to distract the mind from stressful thoughts enough to begin relaxing as bedtime approaches. This works for crossword puzzles, sudoku, and even projects like knitting. Also, if you read consistently before bed, you begin training your brain to associate reading with winding down at night, and winding down becomes easier.
Listen to 8D music or biannual beats
8D music is filtered music that creates a powerfully immersive experience. Many neurodivergent people (ADHDers, particularly) identify this as incredibly soothing and helpful. While formal studies have not yet been done on 8D music, many report that it helps to relieve anxiety, calm PTSD symptoms, and help with insomnia! 8D music is essentially an effect applied to music where songs have been edited to make it seem like the audio is moving in a circle around your head. This gives you a 360 music experience. To get the effect, you need to listen with headphones.
If you haven’t heard of 8D, you have perhaps heard of binaural beats. 8D is actually a version of binaural beats. binaural beats simply means you are hearing tones in each ear at slightly different frequencies. This activates parts of the brain that are associated with meditation and helps activate the relaxation response. While many neurodivergent people experience this as relaxing, some have reported adverse responses (like dizziness and sensory overload). Again, listen to yourself, you are your best guide! If you’d like to check it out, there are many biannual beats and 8D music tracks available on youtube.
Stretch or Do Relaxation Exercises
When we add practices to our bedtime routines, the purpose is to include things that will settle and regulate the body. Stretching and doing relaxation exercises is one of the best ways to do this. First, when we stretch and move our bodies in slow, mindful ways, the proprioception receptors in our muscles send signals to the nervous system that we’re safe and can relax. Some examples of relaxation exercises include breathing techniques, progressive muscle relaxation, and meditation.
For more examples of sleep hygiene, relaxation exercises—including step-by-step guides and resources to explore—and more, check out my Neurodivergent Sleep Guide.
Conclusion
There is a large overlap between Autism, ADHD, and sleep issues. Because neurodivergent people often struggle to rely on internal signals that tells us it’s time to go to bed, it’s helpful to build sustainable and consistent external signals. One way of doing this is building a bedtime routine that feels good, relaxing, and works for you. Building or changing your bedtime routine can look like adding a skincare routine you love, making yourself something warm to drink, reading, and more. When you’re creating your bedtime routine, it’s important to not overwhelm your system with too many changes at once. Try adding one thing at a time, practice it regularly and consistently, and make sure it’s something you and your body enjoy doing.
Thanks for reading, I hope you’ve found this information helpful. If you’d like a more in-depth review of neurodivergent sleep, check out my article on neurodivergent sleep. You deserve to get good sleep (or perhaps good enough sleep is a good goal for us neurodivergent people!).
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