Do women with ADHD struggle to relax?
Yes, many of them do.
When you talk to ADHDers, most of them will tell you a long tale of how they struggle to rest, relax or sleep.
The reasons behind this inability to rest and relax are quite complex and intersect with various aspects of life. I won’t be able to disentangle all of them in this post, but I do want to delve further into those which I find the most important.
ADHD and the dysregulated nervous system
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is a part of the involuntary nervous system, the body uses to control certain vital functions, like breathing. In recent years, the nervous system has gained more “popularity”, as the terms ‘fight & flight’, ‘freeze’, and ‘rest & digest’ have entered the room.
Put simply, there are three branches of the ANS:
The ventral vagal branch (green) is part of the parasympathetic system, and means you are regulated well and corresponds to the “rest and digest” concept. You feel safe.
The sympathetic system (yellow) symbolises danger, and for your body that means that something needs to happen soon. Your body prepares to mobilise either to fight or to run away.
The dorsal vagal (red) is part of the parasympathetic system again. Your body enters this stage when fight or flight is not an option. Your body loses activation which can lead to numbness, depression or complete dissociation.
Note that all three branches are necessary to function. So what is happening with ADHD?
ADHD can affect the nervous system in two major ways.
Due to ADHD impacting our emotional regulation and executive function significantly, we are more prone to overwhelm and perceived stress. A lack of being able to prioritise and manage tasks can often lead to a state of irritation, anxiety or anger. This means our nervous system is overaroused.
If this stress continues for too long, and we don’t return to the green zone, our nervous system becomes more and more inflexible to shift between these states, and yellow becomes our ‘new normal’, thus reducing our resilience for new challenges and stressors. This is where burnout territory begins.
Burnout means that we enter the red zone, and the nervous system begins to shut down bit by bit in order to save you essentially. ADHDers who permanently live in this state are chronically underaroused, and need immense effort in order to be able to do anything.
Generally speaking, the green zone is underdeveloped or shrinks in a way if you have ADHD. One might say the window of tolerance becomes more narrow. Many ADHDers thrive in acute stress (and often need it) because that yellow state is basically our home territory. However, it is not healthy to be in here forever.
A healthy nervous system is able to shift between these states and lives mostly in the green. However, due to the fact that we are so used to living in yellow, most women with ADHD do not know how to return to green, i.e. they don’t know how to relax, or if they do manage to achieve a semblance of relaxation and ease, they are not able to stay and enjoy it for long enough to actually benefit from the rest. It is almost like the body is waiting for the next storm and thus won’t settle.
ADHD: When rest becomes work
Working with one client, I noticed that she had a very lengthy routine in order to be able to fall asleep. I am not talking about a 20-minute bedtime meditation, but a solid 7-hour long protocol that included a myriad of different tasks, but also self-medication.
Whilst I was listening to her curiously about each of the steps she took, which were all well reflected and did make sense, I started to become uneasy and stressed myself. Just hearing how elaborate the process of going to bed became for her made me realise that the “falling asleep” routine itself became a major problem.
And that is the thing, isn’t it? Women with ADHD are incredibly self aware, curious and creative problem solvers. Thus, being unable to rest or sleep becomes a problem we want to solve…
Enter hyperfocus!!!
Naturally, we end up trying everything under the sun in order to shut up our mind that keeps on inventing another three businesses at 3am.
Whilst I appreciate the exploration of different techniques, there are a couple of issues with this approach.
When it comes to resting, less is more. Twenty sleep meditations after another just simply does not mean you will sleep 20 times more soundly. For your brain and body, it means work and depletes energy.
Jumping around between different methods (whilst engaging and exciting) won’t teach your body to actually allow true relaxation to settle, as the mind will already be concerned with the next step of the routine. This takes you away from the present moment and each step becomes just another chore.
I know it’s hard to believe, but sleep, relaxation and rest are not things that you can improve with your perfectionist drive for performance. I know that people may have told you your whole life that your performance wasn’t good enough, and thus, you developed this insane need to prove yourself to the world. But rest emerges when you let go of perfection.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Even people with ADHD deserve rest
Aligning with what I just said, many ADHDers believe they MUST tick off EVERYTHING on their bloody to-do list in order to allow themselves a smidge of relaxation, but this is a limiting belief that is rampant in our society and we need to unlearn this so hard.
Instead of having a lengthy bedtime routine, you could establish little islands of respite throughout your day. You can set your alarm to five different times spaced out over the day and each time the alarm sounds, you ground yourself in your feet and feel into your body, and ask yourself what you need right now. Probably some water, you dehydrated b*tch (haha!). Take a little walk around your space without socks on and explore the floor. Lay down for five minutes and disengage from the outside world. Listen to my Ocean Meditation!
Notice how I haven’t mentioned “check your phone and spend 45 minutes doom scrolling on social media”? Yep, I know… but sadly, scrolling is everything but relaxing, and will likely leave you feeling deflated and not very engaged for the rest of the day.
Remember that physical rest is not the only type of rest we need, there are actually seven types of rest which I address here in a lot more detail. But in essence you have creative, physical, social, spiritual, emotional, mental and sensory rest. So, sleep might not always be what you need.
Relaxation is not the goal for ADHDers (and anyone else)
Say what?
Hear me out, okay? This is what I journaled after going to the sauna last week:
The word “relaxation” is tricky for the ADHD mind. I went into the post-sauna relaxation room, because this is what you ought to do after a sweat in the sauna.
So, there I was laying telling myself to relax … but I couldn’t.
Telling an ADHD mind to relax is like telling cold water to boil.
But for water to boil you need the right environment (i.e. a heat source), and then you observe how the boiling unfolds.
The right environment for an ADHD mind would be to relinquish the goal “to relax” and give the mind a non-goal oriented anchor in your body. Letting go of the goal means letting go of expectations around what resting is and becoming more curious about the anchor. This could be the breath, as an example, or another bodily sensation.
Observing and watching how this curiosity unfolds leads to relaxation as a side effect or by-product.
If you stop wanting to relax, you prepare the mind to actually be able to relax. Curiosity about your existence in this very moment creates the environment for relaxation.
When we make relaxation a goal, we add another thing to our never ending list of tasks. As ADHD women, those lists are already daunting as is. By making relaxation a goal as in “I am going to lie down now in order to relax”, you end up doing yourself a disservice, as your brain stores this as another bloody chore that I have to do, and thus, subconsciously denote rest and relaxation as something heavy and uneasy.
