More focused late at night?

[xephier]

I have always had an interest in psychology and one of the things that I’ve found with myself is that late at night(1-3am) or when I’m trying to sleep that I have a heightened mental state. Up until now I had assumed that it was likely that all people were like that but now that I think about it, perhaps it’s a trait in people with ADD. Our brains are hyperactive during the day making it hard to focus and to recall things from memory but when in a weakened/relaxed state our brain may slow down to a point that we can think like “normal” people.

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[blackdog]

@xephier

Oh, it’s an ADD thing alright. And 1:00 am – 3:00 am is my magic time too. That was when I always did my homework when I was in high school and all of my projects for college.

Now that I am older I am usually in bed by 1:30-2:00. But that is mostly because I am forced to be out of bed at the ungodly hour of 8:00 am, 9:00 am at the latest.

I’m not sure what the exact reason for it is but morning sluggishness and being wide awake at night are pretty much universal ADD traits.

I had a discussion with one of my friends once where we came up with a similar theory to yours. We were talking about how we sometimes function better when we are totally exhausted, from lack of sleep or from being sick. It’s sort of  like  shutting down all non-essential systems and diverting all power to life support. Because you have limited energy reserves you have to focus only on what needs to be done at the moment.

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[kc5jck]

Perhaps it’s because all the other people chattering away inside (and outside) my head have all gone to bed and I can finally work undisturbed.   .  .  .  or being a cat person, maybe it’s the cat in me.

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[blackdog]

Ah, that makes sense. Especially if you also have a strong urge to nap and chase your tail during the day.

I do like nighttime because of the quiet. I like early morning for the same reason, only I forget that fact when my alarm goes off. But I had a job once that I had to walk to at 5:00 am and I loved those walks, when the world was still and peaceful, before the endless noise of people and cars disrupted it. If only I hadn’t had to go to work at the end of it, it would have been perfect.

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[Rick Green – Founder of TotallyADD]

Yeah. The quiet time.

So many ADHD college students do their best work at 2:00 am when everyone else is asleep.

It’s called Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. It’s why I got into show biz. You hit the stage at 8:00 at night, and if there’s two shows on Friday, you’re not done until well after midnight. Woo hoo!

There’s a detailed explanation in our video called ADDeep Sleep.   http://totallyaddshop.com/products/addeep-sleep#.UzrOc1xRHfM

It’s tricky because for many ADHD people our brains really are more alert at night. But as self-confessed night owl Dr. Roberto Olivardia says in the video, having a family and a day job means he has to fight his natural inclination to stay up all night with a whole range of strategies.

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[Patte Rosebank]

Silly me, I thought that working at a theatre meant never having to be at work before noon.

I am reminded of this whenever I’m stumbling dazedly towards Stage Door, at some ungodly hour like 6:00 am, during a tech. week.

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[xephier]

I have a decent vocab but it can be suppressed pretty bad during prime-time hours(pretty much anytime I’m out of the house actually talking to people). But when I’m trying to pass out my vocab is back with a vengeance. I’m coming up with poetry and poetic thoughts, theories and realizations, my mind is lit up like a Christmas tree.

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[shutterbug55]

2:30 AM. If I have a particularly active dream sequence at that time, I wake up and will not be able to get back to sleep, because my mind is revved up. So I write. My best (most frightening) stories come from those dreams.

If something wakes me at that time, I am awake for the rest of the night. I think it has to do with REM sleep. People have different cycles, but high REM activity might be the commonality.

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[Patte Rosebank]

I used to be really troubled by racing thoughts that kept me awake at night.

But, several years ago, I was prescribed a very small dose of Seroquel, to be taken an hour or so before bed, as part of my winding-down routine. It calms my brain, and makes me feel drowsy. Result: I fall asleep easily, and stay asleep.

Seroquel is officially prescribed to control the manic symptoms of bipolar, including racing thoughts. I don’t care which disorder is causing the racing thoughts that are keeping me awake. All I care about is calming them enough to be able to sleep.

The Seroquel helps, but I still have to go through a routine of winding down & relaxing for bed. This includes turning off the lights & TV, and wearing blue-blocker sunglasses if I’m using the computer or in a place with fluorescent lighting.

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[blackdog]

@xephier

That sounds a lot like social anxiety. I am also more intelligent when I’m alone. People would be astounded if they ever heard me talk the way I do when I am talking to myself. But I just automatically clam up as soon as anyone else is around and I am reduced to a basic monosyllabic vocabulary.

@shutterbug55 That’s um…..good, I guess? I can never remember my dreams well enough to write them down, never mind turn them into stories. And I don’t want to remember the frightening ones. I don’t have them anymore though (knock wood). I sometimes have very intense dreams, I guess most people would consider them nightmares, that will wake me up. But I usually fall back asleep and right back into the dream. Eventually I will wake up fully and get up for awhile which usually stops it. A common theme in these dreams is running, usually from some unstoppable threat that just keeps coming.

@Larynxa I get the racing thoughts sometimes too, though not as much as when I was younger. Mostly it happens before i actually get into to bed. I try to stick to a wind down routine but it isn’t easy when you have to work around other people.

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[xephier]

“I can never remember my dreams well enough to write them down, never mind turn them into stories. And I don’t want to remember the frightening ones. I don’t have them anymore though (knock wood). I sometimes have very intense dreams, I guess most people would consider them nightmares, that will wake me up.”

I had a dream a month or so back that the midget off game of thrones was my room-mate and he was a really crappy room-mate and left messes everywhere and had constant loud orgies in the bedroom. But he was offering me gummie candies, he had a large drawer full of them for some reason… Ya… some of my dreams are downright bizzare..

“A common theme in these dreams is running, usually from some unstoppable threat that just keeps coming.”

Justin Bieber?

 

Yes, social anxiety sounds about right.. I think I have that really bad. I remember one time when the woman I worked for was in a small space with me and I became so fearful of her being in my space and my inability to say anything that I was nearly in tears. I do have a bad fear of social situations these days.

Since summer is kicking in and the new captain america movie is about to hit theaters in a few days I was tempted to invite a friend to go and see it with me but I am so fearful of screwing up in some way that I hesitate.

 

 

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[NeuroD]

As far as I can tell, I’ve been like that since forever — which makes sense, given that it’s apparently an ADHD thing. 😉

What really gets me about it is when I’ve tried to spend the entire day dedicated to a project, such as a paper, and have been putting off all of the other distractions, or dodging social events, only to not get anything done until 2am anyway. It’s like: well, for that, maybe I could have gone to dinner with xyz. Maybe caught a movie. Anything other than repeatedly running into a wall.

I’m still trying to figure out how to sort it all out. Sometimes I bite off way more than I can chew, and the next thing I know, my sleep schedule is inverted after one too many papers/projects finished as dawn approaches. And, unfortunately it seems that, at least until I work some things out, my surroundings are less than accommodating in that regard.

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[greentree]

Yes I agree, while studying I used to set an alarm and rise at 2am ,stay up till 4, get heeps done. Its the stillness of the world that helps. A lovely feeling your the only one around. My favourite time of day is just before night fall when all turns to siloets. Pitty its soo short a time each day. And now that I am older I have reverted back to when I was younger to a symtom of up at night many times an unable to sleep. The up side is that its just me as the world sleeps. Provided the inside talking isnt too bad.

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[g.laiya]

yes, as a whole ,i think we add/adhd-ers tend to be rather upside-down. my whole family is, and it makes it really difficult that, though my job is generally afternoon/evening hours, my kids are in elementary school, which starts at 8 am.so the 3 of us are largely sleep deprived, which is not good for anybody. even when we’re really tired in the morning/afternoon it’s hard for us to wind down and get to bed at a decent hour in order to get a good amount of sleep.
i know when i take my med regularly and on time, then i am (usually) able to fall asleep at a more normal hour – and then the kids tend to get to bed earlier too! i’ve been without insurance(and not enough income to compensate) since january, so haven’t had the luxury of being able to do that for a while.
which reminds me, another thing i’ve managed to procrastinate til the deadline…

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[Blue Yugo]

I prefer working 2nd shift.  I think best at night because the noise of the world and people in the community quiets down and I can think better.  Perhaps the lack of outdoor light also helps decrease visual stimuli, and with stores mostly closed after 10pm, my mind doesn’t race around debating if I should run out for something…because that’s often not an option later.  Perhaps it’s also a decrease in what metaphysical circles would call psychic energy of others also in the area.  Be it audio noise or subtle brainwave noise, maybe some of us are more sensitive to all the different energies.  When we’re not bombarded by psychic energy, we’re free in our own minds, too.

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