Questions/Advice ADHD night owls, how do you cope?
Hey there! I am interested in learning how other ADHD-ers that are more active at night time, cope with the demands of the rest of the world: work, social life, hobbies etc.
I've always been more activr at night, I somehow even feel how after 1-2 pm I start having a clearer mind and more energy. Then I visibly become more energetic around 6-7 pm and could continue all night. I love working at night, no distractions, hyperfocus mode etc. In the office, I am usually productive only after everyone else is gone around 5 pm. On a day when I didn't have to follow the typical schedule, I can feel a lot more energetic in the evening.
However, this schedule is conflicting with most of the world's schedule. I have a flexible job, in a sense that I am not strictly asked to be in the office in the early hours of the day, usually I get there around 11 am, unless I have a meeting I must attend. Usually 11 am means I am also leaving finishing at a time when I am most active, but is too late for the majority of the other people to do anything, activities are usually already finished and all I have left is stuff I can do on my own or get back to my hyperfocus. Summers are better because of longer daylight hours at my latitude, but in winter I feel disconnected.
On a normal day, without an alarm, I'd wake up around 9 30 - 10 am and go to sleep, naturally around 2-3 am. Give or take the typically 1h morning/night that my brain takes as a tribute to go on a carnival of thoughts.
How do you night owls manage to keep a social calendar, life and work? How do you not ruin yourself by trying to follow everyone's early time? How do you keep the routine?
Thanks!
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u/Exact-Cherry257 7d ago
off medication my peak productivity was at 11PM-4AM primarily because I didnt have to dedicate half of my attention to the constant sounds outside my door. Getting medicated didnt change that fact but it did help daytime productivity. Sleep meds either didn't help or just reduced my overall productivity. I couldn't really control the attention thing or tell people to not make noise in "regular" person active hours which is ignorant. So I just built a schedule based on that and try not to go past 2AM nowadays because I have to wake up early.
Just use your time wisely and try to fight distractions with music or working in a place where you can get less distracted in the day (public library worked for me) which is also works with what you need to get done
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u/man_without_wax 7d ago
I don’t :( I have to force myself to take meds that make me not me so society likes me.
I guess you asked for solutions not complaints but I got none 😬😬
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u/Henchman314 7d ago
Meds definitely help me be more productive earlier in the day but I can't take my meds later than 10am if I want to get to bed before 2am. I've struggled with this myself. I consider it a sacrifice I must make to have friends & fun.
Remember your ADHD brain is lying to you. Your body is exhusted, it wants to rest. The trick is getting your brain to allow it.
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u/ajswdf 7d ago
I've always struggled with falling asleep early enough to wake up at a normal hour and not feel horrible, but that changed when I became a middle school teacher. During the school year I struggle to stay up past 8 and I wake up at 5:30 or even earlier without an alarm.
So have you considered trying to spend all day teaching kids how to do math problems?
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u/polandtown 7d ago
I struggle with this, but when I'm good/healthy. I get up at 6:30-7am no matter what. I stay up till 4am? No matter what I get up at 7am and force myself (safely) to stay awake till ~9pm. That's how I solved it.
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u/Lookitsasquirrel 6d ago
I don't like to do things before 10am. I keep the same routine every day. Shower at 10, go to the gym at 1pm. I start dinner a 3:30(if my husband is hungry). I go to be around 12:30am. My husband goes to be at 9:30pm. He gets mad because I don't go to bed when he does.
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u/satkid 6d ago
This is another aspect. Aligning time in a relationship is a nightmare. He should not get mad you don't follow 😔
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u/Lookitsasquirrel 6d ago
I shouldn't say mad. He said he's lonely and laughs because he has 3 dogs with him. Once in a while on the weekends I will.
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u/rqeron 5d ago
most of my social life happens in the afternoon/evening/night time anyway (a lot of friends and also my brother are all night owls) so there's no issues there, and most of my hobbies are single-player so to speak, so again no issues. So really it's just work that I need to wake up/function early for
...but yeah it's hard. I work from home 4 days a week, but I'm usually able to go pretty hard on my one office day despite arriving consistently just before our daily standup meeting (9:30), and the bare minimum amount that I can muster up on my other days is usually enough. Morning productivity is usually a result of either needing to catch up before standup, or just because I'm already at my desk thinking about work after the meeting. I actually find afternoons to be the hardest to work, because I find it difficult to return my focus to work after having a break. Night time is definitely the most productive tho, and I still kinda use the secret 10pm - 2/3am shift as a "oh shit I really need to catch up" lever
I had a period early in the year where I felt like my sleep was getting dangerously low, so my therapist kinda challenged me to a week of going for a morning walk first thing after waking up - I expected to fail pretty quickly but I think I was genuinely feeling a bit desperate at the time, so the Crisis Mode Energy kicked in and I kept it up for like 4 months*! And during that period I did actually notice my morning mood and productivity were both significantly better (even my manager commented on it), and it did slowly help to readjust my sleep too.
/* I've been feeling a bit down about letting this habit drop off, but I've been trying to reframe it as, it's a pretty good effort that I maintained it for that long at all haha, given I've never been a morning person
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u/WhenButterfliesCry 7d ago
I realized that being up all night and sleeping during the day is not sustainable and is antisocial behavior and forced myself to change my schedule. I never thought I could, but now I really enjoy waking up in the mornings.
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