My brain refuses to shut off,
and it refuses to wake up.

10pm. You are tired. Your body is tired. You go to bed. You close your eyes. And then, the brain switches on.

The thoughts arrive. In bursts. Without order. Something you said three days ago that you could have phrased differently. The project due tomorrow. A brilliant idea about something unrelated. A memory of an embarrassing moment when you were fourteen (why that memory, at that moment, mystery). The grocery list. A song stuck on repeat. Back to the thing you said three days ago.

This is not anxiety. Well, not always. It is the ADHD brain that, in silence and absence of stimulation, creates its own stimulation. During the day, external distractions keep the brain busy. At night, there are no more distractions. So the brain distracts itself. With thoughts, memories, projections, scenarios.

Some nights, it lasts an hour. Other nights, two or three. I watch the clock go from 11pm to midnight, from midnight to 1am. I know I need to sleep. I know tomorrow will be hard if I do not. And that thought, "I need to sleep," creates a tension that prevents sleep. The vicious cycle is in place.

What I understood, belatedly, is that the ADHD brain does not "switch off" like a light switch. It needs a transition. Not sudden. Gradual. And that transition must be constructed, ritualized, repeated.

This term, from behavioral psychology research, describes delaying bedtime to reclaim free time. The day was spent working, fulfilling obligations, compensating. In the evening, finally, you have time for yourself. So you take it. Even if it means sleeping at 2am.

For people with ADHD, this phenomenon is amplified. Kroese et al. (2014) showed that bedtime procrastination is linked to a self-regulation deficit, exactly what ADHD produces. You know you should sleep. You cannot bring yourself to put down the phone, the book, the show, the game, because your brain has finally found something stimulating and refuses to let go.

For me, it often takes the form of reading. I read an article, which leads to another article, which leads to a video, which leads to a completely different topic. It is nighttime hyperfocus. And when I look up, it is 1:30am.

The core of the problem is that the day did not give me enough "pleasure" dopamine. All day, I did things I had to do. In the evening, my brain demands things I want to do. And that demand is stronger than the reason that says "sleep."

What I found as a compromise: a planned pleasure window before bed. One hour. No more. During that hour, I do whatever I want, reading, a game, a show, without guilt. The clock rings at 10:30pm, I know the window is over. It works about four nights out of seven. The other three, I go over.

Here is the trap: sleep deprivation worsens ADHD symptoms. Attention drops, working memory falters, impulsivity increases, emotional regulation collapses. And worsened ADHD symptoms make sleep even harder. Less control over thoughts at night. Less ability to self-regulate to get to bed. Less resistance to bedtime procrastination.

It is a documented vicious cycle. Hvolby (2015) published a literature review showing that sleep disorders in ADHD are not just a comorbidity but a component of the disorder itself. The dopaminergic system that malfunctions in ADHD is also involved in sleep regulation.

In practice, it looks like weeks like this one: Monday, I sleep at 1am. Tuesday I am exhausted and my symptoms are amplified. Tuesday night I am too restless to sleep early. I sleep at 1:30am. Wednesday is worse. And so on until the weekend when I crash and sleep twelve hours, which shifts my rhythm even further.

Breaking this cycle is the most important and most difficult thing I have done to manage my ADHD. More important than any supplement, any productivity technique. When I sleep well, everything is easier. When I sleep badly, nothing works.

Sandra Kooij and her team in Amsterdam conducted pioneering studies on ADHD and circadian rhythm. Their results (Kooij and Bijlenga, 2013, Bijlenga et al., 2013) show several things:

The circadian delay. In adults with ADHD, melatonin secretion (the sleep hormone) starts on average an hour and a half later than in adults without ADHD. The body is physically not ready to sleep at the "normal" time.

Light sensitivity. The ADHD brain is more sensitive to blue light in the evening, which further delays melatonin production. Screens are a problem for everyone. For the ADHD brain, it is a double problem.

Body temperature. The body temperature cycle, which is a circadian rhythm marker, is also delayed in adults with ADHD. The body cools down later, and the drop in body temperature is a sleep signal.

Melatonin. Kooij showed that taking exogenous melatonin in the evening helps reset the circadian rhythm in adults with ADHD. Not as a sleeping pill but as a rhythm regulator. The effective dose is low (0.5 to 3mg), taken two to three hours before the desired bedtime.

These findings helped me a lot because they transformed a moral problem ("you lack discipline") into a biological problem ("your internal clock is delayed"). That is not the same thing. And the solution is not the same either.

I will be concrete. Here is what I tested, in full transparency.

Melatonin. 1mg, taken at 9pm. Not to fall asleep right away, but to signal to my body that sleep is coming. After 17 days (I had noted it in a journal, because that is how I am), I noticed my eyes started closing around 11pm instead of 1am. Two hours gained. Not miraculous. But two hours changes a life. I still take it. Not every night. On nights when I feel the delay creeping back in.

Blue-light-blocking glasses. I put them on from 8pm. Is the effect placebo? Maybe partly. The studies are mixed on the glasses specifically. But what I know is that without them, when I am in front of a screen until 11pm, I take much longer to fall asleep. The ideal would be no screen at all in the evening. But let us be realistic.

Magnesium. Magnesium glycinate, 400mg, in the evening. There is decent data (Abbasi et al., 2012) on the link between magnesium and sleep quality, especially in people with a deficiency. For me, my shoulders relax within half an hour. It is subtle. Is it the magnesium or the fact that I sit down to take it, which marks the beginning of the evening ritual? Honestly, I am not sure. But I continue.

The evening routine. This is the hardest and most effective thing. At 9:30pm: no more work screens. 10pm: warm shower (the drop in body temperature after the shower promotes falling asleep). 10:15pm: paper book or e-reader without backlight. 10:45pm: lights out. It is rigid. It is boring. And it works best. When I follow it, I fall asleep before 11:30pm. When I do not, it is 1am or 2am.

The capture notebook. A notebook on the nightstand. When a thought arrives at the moment of falling asleep, I write it down. One line. No more. It tells my brain: "It is written down, you can let go." And often, it lets go. Not always. But often.

If I had to summarize with total honesty, here is what makes the difference:

Consistent hours. Going to bed and waking up at the same time, including weekends. It is the most repeated and hardest-to-follow advice. On weekends, my body wants to sleep until noon. Forcing a wake-up at 8am on Saturday is a sacrifice. But when I do it for three weeks straight, my sleep onset stabilizes. And when I slip up one weekend, it takes two or three days to find the rhythm again.

Physical exercise. Thirty minutes of sport, ideally in the morning or early afternoon. Not in the evening, that excites me instead of calming me. On days I exercise, I fall asleep faster and wake up less during the night. It is the most documented and least glamorous thing in all of sleep science.

Acceptance. This might be the most important point, and the vaguest. Accepting that my natural rhythm is delayed. That I will never be someone who jumps out of bed at 6am. Never. That some nights, the brain will not let go before 1am despite the routine. That this is not a failure. It is just how I am built.

When I stopped fighting my rhythm and started working with it, adapting my schedule when possible, not planning anything critical before 10am, accepting slow mornings, the stress around sleep decreased. And ironically, that improved my sleep. The stress of not sleeping is what prevents sleep.